Egypt's Minister of Trade and Industry Nevine Gamea and Minister of Public Enterprise Sector Hisham Tawfik have met to discuss providing the country's textile factories with their cotton and yarn needs. The discussions took place at a meeting with a number of spinning, weaving, and garment investors in Mahalla El-Kubra, Gharbeya Governorate. The meeting tackled the most prominent challenges that investors in the country's spinning, weaving, and ready-to-wear sectors face, and ways to overcome them. It also looked into coordination between the various ministries to remove all obstacles that hinder production and export, whilst also opening new markets for Egyptian spinning and weaving. It was agreed that the Holding Company for Spinning and Weaving and its subsidiary companies would provide private sector factories with their cotton and yarn needs at competitive prices. This would take place with the aim of ensuring the continued production in all parts of this vital industry. Tawfik stressed that the ministry has taken a number of steps in the recent period that will contribute to easing the burden on textile producers in Egypt. The most important of these has been the agreement with the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation to open new facilities to import short-staple cottons to meet needs of industrial sectors. He added that his ministry is currently working on merging public enterprise sector companies involved in spinning and weaving, to reduce them from 23 companies down to 8. This would also see a total of nine cotton ginning companies merged into one company only. Tawfik said that work is underway to place Egyptian products in more foreign markets, by expanding the number of centres for promoting them. A total of 14 promotional centres will be established to market these products, the minister said, adding that there is a need to register all companies on the electronic catalogue through which these products will be showcase. He said that establishing industrial complexes for ready-made clothes is underway based on the exploitation of unused factory lands. A factory in Fayoum Governorate which has been closed for several years was being converted into 20 small factories, which will be offered to small investors. These factories will be made available with easy funding from the Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises Development Agency (MSMEDA), an affiliate of the Ministry of Trade and Industry. In addition to this, cotton gins will be developed to ensure high-quality cotton that is completely free of impurities can be produced in Egypt. Ginners in Fayoum, Zagazig, Kafr El-Zayat, and Kafr El-Dawar are the first to benefit from these developments, which will be ready for work and mass production during the next season.
