UAE, Egypt, Jordan and Bahrain companies sign $2 billion industrial deal

Amman: Companies from the UAE, Egypt, Jordan and Bahrain have signed industrial agreements for investments worth more than $2 billion at the third high-level committee meeting of the Industrial Partnership for Sustainable Economic Development.

The meeting signed 12 agreements on 9 industrial projects. These projects are expected to create approximately 13,000 jobs and increase partner countries’ gross domestic product by more than $1.6 billion.

The meeting opened in Amman on Sunday with the participation of Dr. Sultan bin Ahmed Al Jaber, UAE Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology, Ahmed Samir Saleh, UAE Special Envoy on Climate Change, Yousef Al, Egypt’s Minister of Industry and Trade, Al Shamali, Minister of Industry, Trade and Supply of Jordan and Abdullah Adel Fakhro, Minister of Industry and Commerce of Bahrain.

“This partnership is starting to yield tangible results,” Al Jaber said. “This is a testament to our collective ability to plan, integrate and progress towards our goals while we remain at the beginning of this fruitful partnership.”

“We call on companies in our respective countries to forge these partnerships and to propose project proposals that benefit from our national capabilities, as well as our competitive advantages, resources and expertise,” he added.

The biggest project announced on Sunday was UAE-based automaker M Glory Holding, which announced the start of a $550 million mega-manufacturing project. The project will establish 3 electric vehicle factories with professional production and assembly lines in the UAE, Jordan and Egypt. In the first three years of operation, production capacity will reach 40,000 units of the compact crossover SUV. M Glory Holding signed a memorandum of understanding with Jordan’s Design and Development Authority and Egypt’s Arab Organization for Industrialization as manufacturing partners, along with Bahrain’s GARMCO for the supply of aluminum panels.

Egyptian company Soda Chemical Industries announced a $500 million investment to produce sodium carbonate, or “soda ash,” a key raw material for many industries, such as glass and detergents. The plant will have an annual production capacity of 500,000 tons. A memorandum of understanding on strategic cooperation was signed with Emirates Flat Glass Company, a subsidiary of Dubai Investment Corporation, to purchase the final product.

CFC Group, owned by UAE investors, has announced that it will invest US$400 million to build a fertilizer and chemicals industrial park in Egypt. It has MOUs with Jordan-based Arab Potash and Egypt’s Misr Phosphate Company to supply raw materials. The industrial park will have an annual production capacity of half a ton of feed and potash and 1.1 tons of chemicals.

UAE Universal Aluminum announced an investment of US$200 million to build a silicon metal plant in the UAE with an annual production capacity of 55,000 tons. The company signed a memorandum of understanding with Jordan’s Manaseer Group to supply the required crystalline silica.

Manaseer Group announced an investment of US$70 million to expand its magnesia plant in Jordan. After completion, the total production capacity of the plant will reach an annual output of 270,000 tons, and the products will be exported to the United Arab Emirates. It will sell the product to Emirates Global Aluminum. Production is scheduled to start in 2024.

UAE’s Globalpharma has entered into a partnership with Egypt’s Nerhadou to develop advanced technologies for the manufacture of medicines and supplements. An agreement was also signed to transfer the technology to two Jordanian companies – Savvy Pharma and Triumph. Both projects are due to start construction in 2023, with a total investment of US$60 million. The production capacity of each product will reach 5 million packs per year.