Egypt’s SCZone attracts $10.4bln projects as investments surge

Egypt’s Suez Canal Economic Zone (SCZone) has signed 34 projects worth $10.4 billion across Sokhna, Kantara, Ismailia and East Port Said over the past 38 months, in a sign of rising investor confidence, its chairman said.

Waleid Gamal El Din, head of SCZone, told a British Egyptian Business Association panel that investments have accelerated, with $6.3 billion committed in the past 14 months alone. Sixty factories have opened in the past eight months and 334 projects were proposed, 70 percent of them in industries new to Egypt, including solar panel and pharmaceutical API production.

Gamal El Din added that 40 companies are already exporting an average of $100 million each, potentially adding $4 billion to Egypt’s annual exports, while bunkering activity has risen from zero to one million tonnes per year.

Keld Mosgaard Christensen, CEO of Suez Canal Container Terminal (SCCT), highlighted East Port Said ranked third globally and first in MENA in the World Bank’s 2024 Container Port Performance Index (CPPI).  The Port’s container handling capacity is set to from 4 million TEUs to 6 million TEUs rise once SCCT’s $500 million Container Terminal No. 2 project is completed.

Crediting strong support by the Egyptian government for the achievement by East Port Said, he said efforts are on to speed up customs clearance and improve transparency to attract more value-added logistics.