Japan offers $ 100 m in soft loan to upgrade Egypt's industry

The Japanese Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) said it intends to provide a soft loan of $ 100 million to Egypt as a first stage in the Egyptian program to modernize industry.

"Minister of Industry and Technological Development Ali ALSaiedi, following his meeting Sunday with the bank's delegation," said JBIC is considered the biggest development bank all over the world, noting the bank representatives voiced satisfaction over the Egyptian industry modernization programme.

The plan to upgrade the Egyptian industry rests on two basic pivots: provision of technical support to specify companies' needs so that they would enter into world competition, and the second is provision of finance at a low interest rate.

On his part, Abdul-Monem Saoudi, Head of the Federation of Egyptian Industries (FEI), said that the $100 million loan was part of the fruition of the joint business council meeting held in Tokyo early last year.

He added that the council was working on providing all necessary mechanisms to activate economic cooperation between the two countries.