Military Production Ministry preliminarily agrees with GCL to manufacture solar panels locally
The Ministry of Military Production agreed in principle with China’s Golden Concord Group Ltd ( GCL) to set up an industrial complex to manufacture solar panels of 1,000 MW capacity with investments of up to $ 2bn.
Sources said the project will be established jointly, with 51% of construction to be carried out by the ministry. The Chinese company will bear part of the project’s construction cost while a number of Chinese banks will finance the remaining expenses.
The sources noted that some Egyptian banks expressed their willingness to participate in the project, including the National Bank of Egypt ( NBE) and Banque Misr, as well as Arab funds.
According to the preliminary agreement, the Chinese company will cooperate with the Egyptian ministry to extract silicon or quartz and manufacture the solar panels.
GCL will be responsible for transition expertise, training workers on operation and maintenance of solar power plants, providing engineering consultancy, and cooperation on research and development.
The Ministries of Military Production and Investment signed a memorandum of understanding ( MoU) in 2016 with China’s TBEA Co to set up an industrial complex to manufacture solar panels with a 1,000 MW capacity. However, the company did not secure the required finance, so the Ministry of Military Production began negotiations with other companies.
The sources pointed out that signing an MoU with TBEA did not neces- sitate concluding the agreement with it. It is possible to neglect the signed MoU or to activate it in the framework of only training of workers and transition expertise.