“National Mining Projects… Possibilities and Challenges”

Canada Egypt Business Council (CEBC) and Egyptian Business Council for International Cooperation (ECIC) had the pleasure to host a round table on Wednesday August 8^th, 2018 to discuss an important topic Egypt needs to focus on in the near future, in a way to get out of the bottle neck of the enormous debts that comes out of the import bills.

Eng. Motaz Raslan, Chairman of CEBC & ECIC has welcomed the guests and the respected speakers; General Dr. Mofeed Mohsen Besada, Deputy Head National Service Project Organization – Mining Projects, Dr. Adel Yahia, Chairman of Sinai Manganese Co. and Dr. Muhammad Zaher– CEBC Mining Committee.

Eng. Motaz Raslan then highlighted the role of the mining industry in Egypt and its major potentials all over the country. He explained that the familiarity with the geological resources compare to other countries will aid in putting a futuristic plan to develop the exploration process in the mining industry along with the financial policies.

From here the National Service Project Organization is doing remarkable efforts by taking actions in various way, the most important is reviving the mineral wealth sector and supporting the exploration companies,  minimizing the random mining, forming an independent committee for concession agreements that propose the needed amendments and transfer distinctive experience and training.

Furthermore developing a program for International Investment corporations in addition to renewing the mining laws to match the international standards and offer new areas of explorations & development, reorganizing the institutional resources and finally creating a positive image of Egypt in the global mining sector.  Dr. Muhammad Zaher highlighted that it’s the 10^th round table the council did hold which tackles the mining subject. CEBC & ECIC played a big role in assisting the industry to take serious moves in developing legislations with the Egyptian government. Dr. Muhammad introduced General Dr. Mofeed Mohsen Besada, Deputy Head National Service Project Organization – Mining Projects, he then requested the speaker to further elaborate on the chosen topic.  Dr. Mofeed started his talk by positive words; Egypt is blessed with its land that has all kind of rocks that is used in so many other industries. Sedimentary rocks exist all along the river Nile. Many countries seek Egypt’s sand to use it on their beaches for building purposes.

Egypt’s ores are safe however they are not observable to external exploitation.Metamorphic rocks exist in the red sea territory, Copper, Lead, and Manganese. Aswan and close to the Sudan border exists the volcanic rocks and the Granite. Egypt has all sorts of ores with exceptional high quality.  From here, we needed to preserve the mineral wealth and use it at its best to increase the added value.  This was one of the National Service Project Organization – Mining Projects – achievements.  Dr. Mofeed Besada thanked the CEBC & ECIC for continuously trying to support the industry and exchange the experiences with other countries.

He continued; we have over 30 companies that cover the national service in Food, Agricultural Houses, Animal Production Sector and the Mining Sector. The main objective of the national service role is to reduce the burden on the end user and offer variety of goods with reasonable prices.  He further explained, the petroleum sector is more advanced and organized than the mining. Hence it is required to work on eliminating the obstacles and challenges for the investors.

There are some issues I would like to highlight that affect the mining industry; 1-    Licensing and approvals; extending the license from one to two years will be an encouraging step towards the investors.2-    Transportation; the high cost of transportation due to the distance between the source which is usually in remote areas and the warehouses. 3-    Trained manpower; unfortunately we are missing the trained manpower; lately we succeeded to bring some experts in Italy to establish a training center in Egypt.  4-    High rigidity; we are working on studies that allow us to manufacture raw materials out of the rigid materials.

The floor was the open for Q&As, where experts of the industry were able to answer the questions.  At the end of the session, Dr. Mofeed Besada highlighted that he will soon launch a huge project for the phosphate in Al Ain El Sokhna which will be the biggest in the entire region to fulfill the domestic needs.  After we knew and learned so many things about what has been achieved and in the pipeline of the mining sector.  We reached the closure of the session; Eng. Motaz Raslan thanked the respected speakers and the distinguished guests for participating and updating the industry leaders.