Al Amal to temporarily shutter BYD assembly plant in Egypt on FX shortage
Al Amal will soon shutter most of its local BYD production lines: Al Amal Auto will temporarily suspend operations at its BYD assembly plant within weeks, Chairman Amr Soliman told Enterprise, citing difficulty obtaining hard currency to import the required production components. Al Amal is the sole agent and distributor of BYD and Lada brand passenger cars and King Long microbuses in Egypt. The news was first reported by Asharq Busines s.
What will happen? The company has enough components to continue operations for the next two weeks, after which it will down tools for at least 10 days as it awaits a shipment of components, Soliman tells us. After it receives the shipment, the company will only reopen only one of its four production lines, he said. The company has some 600 orders waiting to be fulfilled, he told us.
The firm has been struggling with import difficulties for some time: Al Amal’s factory has been forced to scale down its operations, with its output slashed by some 60% as a result of limited component imports, Soliman told us back in March. “Some 45% of the cars’ components are sourced locally, while the remaining 55% is imported,” he told Asharq . The company suspended the assembly of the Lada Granta on the back of Western sanctions on Russia and has for months been worried it could be forced to shutter completely due to import restrictions.
On the upside: Al Amal is currently in negotiations with Russia’s Lada to resume assembly, Soliman confirmed.
Al Amal has been in the market for almost two decades: Al Amal kicked off its operations back in 2004, establishing a factory in the Tenth of Ramadan industrial zone.
The wider sector is in a slump thanks to import woes: Total auto sales volumes fell more than a third in 2022 after capital controls in place for most of the year made it almost impossible for distributors to import cars and components, and forced a number of global car manufacturers to suspend sales to Egypt.