Lafarge launches the second roundtable of "Building Egypt 2030"

 

 

Cairo, Egypt - 8th November 2014

 

 

Tackling the subject of "Transport and infrastructure", Lafarge Egypt held its second roundtable discussion session as a part of its series of informative roundtable discussions entitled ‘Building Egypt 2030', in cooperation with MEED, the Middle East's leading business publication .

 

 

 

 

Lafarge's second roundtable aimed to confirm its commitment to build better cities through improving the ways of building, developing ways of planning, supporting innovation in the field of construction.

 

The second roundtable also gave a glimpse about the government's vision and strategy of infrastructure and transport projects in Egypt up to 2030, discussed how to attract more foreign investments to speed up infrastructure development, the future role of Renewable Energy and how can innovation deliver solutions to future challenges while simultaneously meeting and reaching sustainability needs and goals in the growing infrastructure and transportation sectors.

 

MEED editor, Richard Thompson provided a clear overview about Egypt's transport and infrastructure project sectors, real insight into emerging project trends, key players, challenges and success factors and an in-depth understanding of the current and future project market, macroeconomic overview and key indicators for Egypt in relation to GCC and global markets.

 

 "The progress of nations is measured by the efficiency of its transport system ", said Ambassador Mahmoud Allam, Advisor, Minister of Transport, who gave a brief about the government's strategy to develop transportation system in cooperation with the European Union, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and others, The strategy depends on three main pillars, Infrastructure development, good organization of available resources, human capacity development.

 

"Egypt is seeking to attract 10 billion dollars in foreign investments in the coming period", said Dr. Sherif Oteifa, Senior Advisor, Egyptian General authority for investment (GAFI), Ministry of Investment, he added that major government's Projects will be financed through a partnership with the Private sector and confirmed that all the guarantees will be given to the investors as an expected legislation amendments will take place by Egypt's economical conference next February.

 

The roundtable discussion session also dealt with the role that innovation can play in providing solutions to the challenges of the future, in addition to meeting the sustainable needs as information technology can provide the information and data necessary to take the right decision.

 

"Lafarge is working to find a high-efficient materials for use in the Egyptian national projects so that we can say for all by the year 2030 that we have the chance to contribute in building Egypt", said Hussein Mansi, Chief Executive Officer, Lafarge Egypt, he also added that confidence building with customers in addition to the interaction with stakeholders, contractors and engineers make them more prone to accept innovative solutions Like applying the Concrete roads in Egypt for example.

 

During the last half of the roundtable discussion, Dr. Kareem Attallah, Managing Director, Egyptian Green Building council (NGO), highlighted the concept of the Green house and its applicability in Egypt and the necessity of adopting new policies to support reliance on renewable energy sources and put a special code for these homes and provide incentives to business owners in order to adopt the concept of recycling within their companies.

 

Speakers at the second roundtable session included Ambassador Mahmoud Allam, Advisor, Minister of Transport, Dr. Sherif Oteifa, Senior Advisor, and Egyptian General Authority for investment (GAFI), Ministry of Investment, Mr.Atter Hanora, Director, PPP Central Unit - Ministry of Finance, Mr. Hussein Mansi, Chief Executive Officer, Lafarge Egypt  as well as  speakers from Orascom Construction industries, PWC Egypt, Schneider Electric, IBM Egypt & Archirodon.