Egypt's El Sewedy to launch industrial city in Tanzania aiming to attract $400M in investments

CAIRO – 5 November 2023: The General Authority for Investment and Free Zones (GAFI) hosted Sunday the “African Investment Forum (AIF) – Egyptian Industries on Tanzanian Land,” which was attended by the representatives of more than 100 Egyptian industrial institutions.

AIF witnessed the announcement by El Sewedy Industrial Development, a subsidiary of El Sewedy Electric, of the new El Sewedy Industrial City in Tanzania, on an area of ​​2.6 million square meters. The city aims to attract investments worth more than $400 million from investors throughout the region, thus creating more than 50,000 job opportunities and providing important support for the country’s industrial development and the industrial development strategy 2025.

The new City plan accommodates 200 factories in sectors of strategic importance to Tanzania, such as medicines, building materials, food and beverage industries, and engineering industries. The city includes El Sewedy Academy for Technical Education and Vocational Training, which is committed to the highest international standards for qualifying the Tanzanian workforce to keep pace with global developments in the market.

The new project is located in the city of Kibaha, Tanzania, 15 kilometers away from the “Kwala” Dry Port, and is distinguished by the presence of the “Rovos” Standard Gauge Railway (SGR), which extends over a length of two thousand kilometers, and connects Dar es Salaam, the industrial city and the Dry Port, which facilitates transportation of people and goods.

Mr. Hossam Heiba ​​said that GAFI’s hosting of “AIF - Egyptian Industries on Tanzanian Land” has been reflecting the development of Egyptian – Tanzanian relations at all political, economic and cultural levels over the past years. He pointed out the many future partnership opportunities to stimulate growth and optimal exploitation of the competitive advantages in the two countries, especially the attractiveness of the location and the development of the investment environment. The two governments implemented an ambitious economic reform program to enhance the business environment.

The GAFI CEO added that the challenges that the global economy is going through create huge opportunities for investment cooperation among African countries. Over the past years, GAFI has signed many memoranda of understanding with African promotion agencies and encouraged Egyptian capital to conclude investment partnerships with African Business Community.

TIC Executive Director Mr. Gilead Teri reviewed the  great potentials of Tanzania as an investment destination, the incentives and facilities available to international investors, the efficient implementation of the one-stop-shop in investor service centers, in addition to its rich natural resources, a large market that includes 60 million consumers, and trade and development agreements with many countries, especially the Southern African Development Community (SADC) agreement, which includes, in addition to Tanzania, 15 African countries.

Mr. Teri indicated that his government aims to conclude investment partnerships with the Egyptian side in the manufacturing, pharmaceutical, and food industries, and to benefit from Egyptian expertise with regard to real estate investment and infrastructure development, since Tanzania’s expansion of infrastructure projects has contributed to reducing production costs to the least average in the region, which contributed to making the volume of Egyptian investments in Tanzania amount to $1.3 billion since 1997.

Engineer Mohamed Al-Qammah, CEO of El Sewedy Industrial Development, announced that the construction of the first phase of the City, of a surface area of ​​500,000 square meters, will be completed within a year. He expressed his aspiration to cooperate with the Egyptian business community in various fields and to benefit from Egypt’s industrial capabilities in a way that will increase the investment movement and trade exchange between the two countries.

Engineer Ibrahim Qamar, El Sewedy Electric East Africa Regional Director, presented El Sewedy Electric’s pioneering role in investing in Tanzania, as the company’s presence in Tanzania dates back to 2018, and one of its most important projects is the construction of the Julius Nyerere Hydropower Plant and Dam, the largest hydroelectric power station in the history of Tanzania. In addition to a group of factories for cables, transformers, and electrical components in Tanzania, which have begun production and export to Tanzania's neighboring countries since 2021, the most important of which are Kenya, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The company plans to continue investing benefitting from the governmental and legislative support, to make Tanzania the mainstay of expansion plans in Africa, and to benefit from the country’s unique location, which shares borders with eight countries, six of which are landlocked countries, which qualifies it to become an economic hub and a regional transit point.