China’s Wu’an Xin Feng signed the contract for its USD 1.7 bn integrated metal industries complex in the Ain Sokhna industrial zone with the Madbouly government yesterday, according to a statement. The project will be set up over a five-year period and across two phases and once fully completed, it will offer 8k direct jobs.

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What to expect: The complex will house nine industrial projects, two comprehensive service centers — one for R&D and one for solid waste recycling.

Phase one to be completed in 2027: The first phase of the project will include an auto parts factory with an annual production capacity of 230k tons, a home appliance metal components plant with a production capacity of 50k tons a year, and a standard fasteners project that produces 100k tons a year. The plants are expected to kick off operations early 2027. Meanwhile, a hot-rolled steel coils factory that has an annual production capacity of 2 mn tons will come online at a later time. All in all, the first phase of the complex will offer over 4.4k jobs.

As for the second phase, it will see the construction of an additional five more factories — a machinery components plant with a production capacity of 200k tons a year, a brake discs project that can produce 150k tons a year, a factory producing steel structures with a capacity of 100k tons a year, one for aluminum and magnesium alloy auto parts with a capacity of 20k tons a year, and one for cold-rolled steel coils with a capacity of 2 mn tons a year. The second phase will also see the construction of the two service centers.

The timeline: The factories — apart from the steel plant — will kick off trial operations in January 2029 and the cold-rolled steel facility is slated to launch trial operations in March 2030. This phase is expected to create around 3.6k jobs.

REMEMBER- The Chinese steelmaker first floated the idea for the complex late last year. Prior to that it inked an agreement with the SCZone to lease a plot of land to set up a USD 297 mn hot-rolled steel coils plant. It remains unclear if the project is the hot-rolled steel coil factory that will be set up in the industrial complex or a separate project entirely.

Part of a wider localization push: The complex includes a number of component factories that fit into the Madbouly government’s plans to localize a long list of industries.

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