Egypt, France sign financing agreement to manufacture, supply 55 air-conditioned trains for 1st metro line

CAIRO - 28 March 2022: Egypt and Finance signed a financing agreement that stipulates to finance the manufacture and supply of 55 air-conditioned trains for the first metro line as part of the Ministry of Transport's plan to develop the line.

 

A statement issued by the Ministry of Transport stated that the value of the project amounts to €776.9 million, including maintenance work for 8 years, with the supply of workshop equipment necessary for maintenance work. The 25-year repayment period is at an interest rate of 0.0092 percent.

 

The total value of the Egyptian government's contribution to financing the deal is LE 1.83 billion, with the local component in manufacturing at 13.3 percent, through cooperation with the "SEMAF" factory.

 

The contract was signed by Kamel El-Wazir, Minister of Transport, and Bruno Le Maire, French Minister of Economy and Finance, and witnessed by the Prime Minister, Mostafa Madbouli.

 

The Minister of Transport stressed that this signing comes in light of the ministry’s plan to develop the first line and supply everything that is new to keep pace with the huge development in the field of green, clean, environmentally friendly mass transportation, especially with the implementation of a comprehensive plan to develop the first and second lines to maintain their safety and maintenance to improve the service provided to the citizen. 

 

“ This comes to provide all means of comfort and safety for metro users, to accommodate the steady increase in the number of passengers, and to reduce maintenance and operating costs,” he noted.

 

He added that these trains will contribute to a huge qualitative leap in the level of service provided, as the time of train will reach two and a half minutes with the ease of automatic operation of the line and the regularity of traffic and relay on the line, noting that all the new trains are air-conditioned, in order to provide the appropriate climate for the comfort of passengers, especially since the first line of the metro is the first line that began to be established in 1983, and it was commissioned in 1987, as it is the backbone of the entire Cairo metro network.