General Electric (GE) plans to invest $340m in the Egyptian market this year, $200m of which will be directed to establish a multi-modal manufacturing and training facility in Suez, GE President and CEO for North East Africa, Ayman Khattab, told Daily News Egypt in an interview.

Khattab also said that the company is currently in negotiations with a foreign oil company operating in Egypt to participate in the development of the oil field in the Mediterranean in the future.
GE’s CEO further stated that the company continues working in line with a December 2014 agreement it had signed with the Egyptian government with an aim to enhance the efficiency of the country’s electricity grid. “Within six months of the signing, we were able to install 46 gas turbines in 14 different locations in order to add about 2.6 GW of electricity to the Egyptian electricity grid, which is considered a record globally.

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He added that “improving the efficiency of the plants is crucial because it helps reduce their consumption of petroleum and increases their production of electricity.”

In regard to the company’s current development projects, Khattab noted that GE is “developing the combined cycle power plants in Assiut and west of Damietta, in cooperation with an Egyptian company, which will eventually help raise the plants’ efficiency from 1.5 GW to 2.25 GW. This is expected to be completed before summer 2018.”