The Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency (MSMEDA) Saturday announced that it has provided EGP 470m from January 2021 to June 2023 to convert 59,000 cars to natural gas, which accounted for about 40% of the total converted vehicles in Egypt during that period.
The agency’s CEO, Bassel Rahmy, said that the agency was committed to implementing the state’s directives to integrate the environmental dimension into various fields. He said that this was part of the state’s strategy to take more necessary measures to protect the environment and to support the transition to the green economy.
Rahmy explained that the agency was one of the first development institutions that launched an initiative to finance projects that comply with environmental standards, including the national initiative to convert cars to natural gas.
He said that the agency offered various forms of financial and technical support to those who wanted to convert their cars, to enable them to provide transportation services in a more sustainable and eco-friendly way.
Rahmy also added that the agency focused its efforts on providing packages of financial and non-financial services for industrial projects that supply cars and their value chains, such as exhaust manufacturing projects and car body manufacturing projects. He said that the agency was able to provide financing of EGP 1.8bn for about 37,000 projects that created about 100,000 jobs in nine years.
He praised the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed between the agency and the East Port Said Development Company, which aimed to provide a suitable environment and create the necessary infrastructure for the growth of the small enterprise sector. He said that this reflected the state’s strategic direction for the reconstruction of Sinai and the development and competitiveness of small and medium enterprises.
Rahmy’s statements came as a comment on the participation of MSMEDA in the activities of the fifth session of the Smart Transport, Logistics, and Green Transport Exhibition and Conference for the Middle East and Africa. Raafat Abbas, Vice President of the Agency, participated in the second session of the exhibition and reviewed the agency’s efforts and contributions to many transportation-related initiatives.
