CAIRO, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- Chinese company Vanward on Thursday started the construction of a new factory in Egypt to manufacture household appliances and heat exchangers.
The factory is built on an area of 26,000 square meters in the China-Egypt TEDA Suez Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone within the Sokhna Industrial Zone, about 137 km to the east of the Egyptian capital of Cairo.
At the ground-breaking ceremony, Waleid Gamal El-Dein, chairman of Egypt's General Authority of the Suez Canal Economic Zone (SCZone), said the new factory is "a new milestone that adds to the technology of this field in Egypt," according to a statement issued by the SCZone.
He also thanked Chinese industrial developer TEDA-Egypt for cooperating with SCZone to attract more investments and open new markets for Chinese companies.
Li Daixin, general manager of TEDA Development Company, said that setting up a factory in Egypt is not only an attempt for the enterprise to go global but also a response to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
The construction of the factory will be completed in nine months, the SCZone said in the statement.
The project, aiming to produce 2 million sets of water heater parts and 500,000 water heaters annually, is expected to provide about 300 job opportunities, 90 percent of which will be for Egyptians. ■