Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Tarek El Molla has witnessed signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC), the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency (MSMEDA), and the Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (EGAS) to support micro, small and medium enterprises.

This would happen by providing better opportunities to the owners of such projects to increase local production, providing production inputs for them, and raising the competitiveness of Egyptian exports through the expansion at the compressed natural gas (CNG) and centers for converting cars to run with dual fuels.

After the signature, El Molla said that this protocol represents a distinguished model for cooperation between the state’s entities. It will provide services and the needed funds for the owners and those who desire to initiate start-ups in addition to providing technical support and training programs.

For his part, the CEO of MSMEDA, Bassel Rahmy, elaborated that this agreement comes as part of the county’s strategy for supporting environment initiatives and its economic reflection to the citizens including vehicles conversion to run on natural gas which will reduce pollution as well as reduce petroleum products imports.

He noted that the ministry is implementing this initiative aiming to facilitate the needed financing procedures to encourage citizens to convert their cars to run on natural gas. Rahmy noted that  MSMEDA dedicated EGP 715 million for cars conversion and it has been used in converting 103,000 vehicles.

On another hand, El Molla and Rahmy witnessed the signing of the contracts for the ninth phase of car conversion project between Gastec, Cargas and MSMEDA aiming to convert 8500 cars to run on natural gas for each company, at a value of EGP 100 million for each company.