Egypt: The Industrial Development Authority (IDA) has not received any requests for 11 cement plants licenses offered since early 2017. Sources quoted by the Al-Mal newspaper reveal that despite eight local and foreign companies purchasing statements of work by the end of 2017, there has been little interest in the licences.
The IDA offered 14 cement licenses in 2016 to build plants or expand operations in nine governorates. Three licences were sold to SVC, Elsewedy Cement and Egyptian Cement respectively for US$28m in 2016. The remaining licences for Minya, Sohag, Qena, Aswan, New Valley, Matrouh, Suez and South Sinai were re-offered in 2017. Oversupply of cement in the country is estimated to be 30Mt/yr.