Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi said that Egypt needs $20 billion annually to provide petroleum products such as gas, petroleum, and butane gas.
He added in his comments in a video clip – published by the Egyptian Presidency – that the solution to Egypt’s economic problem, including price increases, lies in increasing Egypt’s dollar income so that its revenues from it are higher than its spending.
He continued: “The dollar is a free currency that reflects the state’s ability to meet its demands and the demands of its people in a stable manner.”
Al-Sisi considered that Egypt is facing a “battle against the dollar shortage,” stressing the importance of reducing the cost of imports in exchange for raising the level of production and exports.
The Central Bank of Egypt’s foreign exchange reserves stabilized at $47.1 billion last December, compared to $46.95 billion in the previous November.
Wind energy project
In this context, the French infrastructure fund Meridiam, one of the main shareholders in the Suez Canal, announced that it will invest more than one billion euros ($1.04 billion) in a wind energy project in Egypt that it says will be “the largest in Africa.”
The Fund stated that a power station distributed over two sites will be established starting in January 2025 in a desert area along the Gulf of Suez, with a total capacity of 1,100 megawatts.
This is part of Egypt’s plan to increase the production capacity of renewable electricity to 42% in production diversity by 2030.
Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly confirmed last December that the percentage was 11.5% in 2023.
The station is expected to begin operating in 2027 and continue to be used for 25 years.
Egypt opened a 500-megawatt solar power plant in Aswan, in the south of the country, at the end of December, as part of its efforts to enhance renewable energy production and reduce the electricity shortage.
Power outage
The frequency of shortages has become frequent during periods of high temperatures, and last summer, the electrical supply in Egypt was cut off daily due to the extensive use of air conditioning devices.
At the beginning of this January, the French energy company Engie also signed a contract in Egypt to expand a wind energy generation project on the coast of the Gulf of Suez, which will increase the total capacity from 500 megawatts to 650 megawatts.
With operations scheduled to begin in the third quarter of 2025, Engie Group announced that this project will be the “largest” in Africa.
This contract represents for Engie an investment of $130 million in addition to the first phase of $600 million, according to François-Xavier Paul, General Manager of Renewable Energy Resources for the Middle East and North Africa at Engie.
