Minister of Transport Kamel el Wazir attended Monday the signing of 13 contracts, memos of understanding and agreements to develop railways, the underground metro and maritime transport with major international companies on the sidelines of the fourth edition of Smart Transport, Logistics and Traffic Fair and Forum for the MEA region (TransMEA2021) that started on Sunday and runs till November 10 under the sponsorship of President Abdel Fattah El Sisi.
The signed deals included one with France Alstom on manufacturing and delivering 55 air-conditioned trains for the first line of the underground metro covering maintenance operations for eight years.
The minister expressed his ministry’s keenness on developing the metro’s first line which was the first underground metro in Africa and the Middle East as it started operation in 1987.
Minister Wazir also attended the signing of a contract to manufacture and deliver 23 trains for the first stage of the fourth metro line with Japan’s Mitsubishi.
He noted that the implementation of the first stage of the fourth line is part of cooperation between the Egyptian and Japanese governments in carrying out development projects especially in the transportation domain.
The project will be carried out in cooperation with Japanese companies while JICA will contribute to financing it with a soft loan.
Wazir witnessed the signing of a contract for developing and maintaining 23 locomotives of Cairo Metro Line 1 at a value of €185 million between Chairman of the National Authority for Tunnels Essam Wali and CEO of Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles (CAF) of Spain Urtzi Montalvo.
The minister pointed out the political leadership ordered fully developing the first and second lines of Cairo Metro to be eco-friendly lines, adding the ministry aims to extend the first line from New Marg station to reach Shibin el-Qanater with a length of 19 km.
The minister also witnessed the inking of a memorandum of understanding by the national authority, Spain’s CAF, and Mitsubishi of Japan on modernizing and maintaining the locomotives of the metro’s second line.
Within two months, the Spanish and Japanese companies will submit technical and finance offers for the modernization works so as to be negotiated before the signing of a final contract in January, he added.
Wazir attended the signing of a framework agreement between the National Authority for Tunnels and a consortium of Hyundai Rotem of South Korea and Egypt’s NERC to manufacture 320 metro carriages for the Cairo metro’s second and third lines.
The agreement comes within within framework of increasing the metro’s fleet to accommodate the increasing number of passengers after the opening of the third phase of Cairo Metro Line 3.
The minister witnessed the inking of an MoU to prepare preliminary feasibility studies for setting up Cairo Metro Line 6 between the national tunnels authority and a consortium of AEGIS Rail and Setec of France.
The sixth line is expected to start from Al Khusus city to Tora El-Balad at a cost of EGP 62.4 billion to transfer 1.4 million passengers per day.
He said that the first stage of the preliminary feasibility studies is scheduled to be prepared within four months.
Wazir attended the signing of an MoU between the national tunnels authority and a consortium of Deutsche Bahn and DP Consulting GmbH to present a bid to operate the first line of the high-speed electric train, which is expected to link Ain Al Sokhna with Matrouh.
Egypt will establish three lines of the high-speed electric train; the green line (from Ain Al Sokhna to Matrouh), the blue line (from 6th of October to Aswan), and the red line (from Qena to Safaga port).
The minister said the German consortium includes the world’s pioneering companies in the fields of operating railways and providing logistic, engineering, and consultative services for infrastructure and transport projects.
Source: State Information Service Egypt