Our esteemed guests,
I am pleased and honored to welcome you to Cairo today, where we gather to open the second edition of the Egyptian Mining Forum. Egypt is a unique country blessed with an unparalleled location, expandable infrastructure, and abundant mineral resources that are part of the Arab Nubian Shield, making it a land of golden opportunities.
As you all know, the mining industry has a long history in Egypt dating back to pre-dynastic times, where the oldest known map in the world from 1160 BC showed the route to gold mines in the Eastern Desert. Our history in mineral wealth dates back to the ancient Pharaonic era, exploiting gold, copper, silver, zinc, platinum, and several other essential and precious metals.
These vast potentials supported by the government’s economic reform program, which aims to achieve financial stability, attract investments, and boost market attractiveness within the framework of Egypt’s Vision 2030.
These factors were the main incentives that allowed us to radically change Egypt on the global investment map in the mining sector.
To achieve this vision and transform Egypt into an attractive investment destination in the mining sector, the Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources initiated an ambitious development and modernization project to uncover this sector’s potential.
The ministry adopted the development and modernization program in 2018 in collaboration with Wood Mackenzie. The project focused on key axes to achieve several strategic objectives in line with the Egypt 2030 vision, to increase the contribution of the mining sector to the GDP to 5% instead of 1%, in addition to encouraging foreign direct investment in the mining sector by attracting major global mining companies.
The program focuses on key axes: mining legislation, financial system modification, licensing system, organizational structure, capacity building, mining strategy development, and communication methods.
In light of the above, the Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources presented a new amended law for mineral resources and its executive regulations in 2019, announced in 2020. This change opened up new opportunities during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, the sector regained its bold steps to prove that the Egyptian mining sector is bigger than any crisis. This one-year journey was full of exciting news at the forefront of developing and updating the industry.
The most important of these is the government expansion and adoption of several new legal frameworks that allow for the acceleration of new investments, in addition to developing the infrastructure of the mining sector by establishing air and sea ports, new roads, railways, as well as expanding the electricity and water supply systems.
We also adopted a new policy to maximize the added value of the mineral resources by creating investment projects for the private sector to provide intermediary products, as these intermediary products are one of the pillars of the sustainable industry sector.
Several value-added projects have been implemented now to provide mineral supplies that achieve high value, such as metallic silicon, soda ash, and tantalum.
Indeed, Egypt is striving towards green mining that meets environmental and social requirements, sustainability, and governance. These ecological, social, and governance requirements constitute the comprehensive framework that enables us to assist mining companies and investors in achieving benefits for the planet and people and earning profits.
