From Yancheng, Jiangsu to the banks of the Nile River, a Chinese intelligent equipment enterprise is extending its journey from delivering a production line to jointly building a base. Recently, the Egyptian Ministry of Industry, Egyptian Sovereign Fund, and China's Jiangsu Changhong Intelligent Equipment Co., Ltd. signed a memorandum of understanding to establish an automotive industry engineering and intelligent manufacturing base in Egypt, and to cooperate with Italy's FIDIA Automotive Engineering Systems company. Egyptian Prime Minister Mustafa Madbri attended to witness the signing of the agreement, and Egyptian Minister of Investment and Foreign Trade Mohamed Farid, Minister of Industry Khalid Hashim, and Chairman of the Board of Directors Qiu Yunjie jointly signed the document.

From factory construction to equipment manufacturing

According to the plan, the project will establish a specialized platform to provide a package of services including automotive factory planning and engineering design, intelligent production equipment manufacturing and assembly, technical services, training, and project implementation. The project will gradually transfer high value-added processes such as engineering design, metal processing, equipment assembly, maintenance, and after-sales service to Egypt.

This is not the first time Changhong Intelligent has entered the Egyptian market. Previously, the company had undertaken and completed two key projects for Mansur Group's MMM new vehicle factory and AFA factory upgrade and renovation. With its full line delivery capability, it gained local recognition and laid a practical foundation for the landing of the base. At present, the project is still in the cooperation framework stage, and the specific investment amount, production capacity, and construction time have not been announced yet.

Localization is the core

Egypt has launched a national plan for the development of the automotive industry since 2022. By setting tariff gradients and investment incentives, it aims to attract international car companies to invest in local assembly, and deeply link support policies with indicators such as localization rate, annual output, and export scale. The goal is to build an automotive manufacturing and export center for the Middle East and Africa.

The international enterprises introduced this time are those with advanced supply chain capabilities. The project aims to enhance Egypt's automobile manufacturing and production equipment capabilities, expand local manufacturing and export scale, and alleviate pressure on foreign exchange resources through technology localization and professional knowledge transfer. At the same time, the project will also explore attracting Chinese and other international enterprises to rely on the platform to carry out production, improve the value chain of the automotive industry, and enhance the capabilities of local enterprises and professionals in the fields of intelligent manufacturing and industrial engineering.

For vehicle manufacturers, the enhancement of local engineering and equipment matching capabilities means that there are people to rely on for new factory construction, people to rely on for production expansion, and there is also room for improvement in the proportion of local component usage.

Targeting the new hub of the region

From the perspective of industrial layout, Egypt's focus this time is not simply on component production capacity, but on the engineering and equipment links that have long been missing in the automotive industry chain. Based on the local automobile manufacturing foundation and industrial and logistics platforms such as the Suez Canal Economic Zone, the project can serve both local vehicle and parts enterprises in Egypt and export engineering services and intelligent manufacturing solutions to surrounding regional markets in the future.

Since launching its internationalization strategy in 2019, Changhong Intelligent has gradually established a European research and development platform with its holding subsidiary FIDIA in Italy as the core, and formed a multilingual technical and business team. Its business covers France, the United Kingdom, Eastern Europe, Egypt and other places, and has delivered key overseas projects such as Stellantis coating production line, Jaguar Land Rover coating production line, and Kyrgyzstan Bishkek final assembly production line.

If the cooperation is further transformed from a memorandum of understanding to specific projects, Egypt is expected to upgrade from an automobile production base to a regional base for automobile factory engineering, production equipment, and intelligent manufacturing solutions; And this enterprise from Yancheng will also use this as a pivot to leverage the automotive industry equipment market in the Middle East and Africa.Editor/Yang Meiling