The competition in Egypt’s car assembly sector becomes tough following the country’s application of free tariffs policy on the exported European cars, Yoshifumi Omura, chief representative of the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in Egypt.

In comparison with the last year’s conditions, car assembly companies in Egypt face some difficulties now, Omura told Daily News Egypt, affirming that the Japanese companies are interested in investing in Egypt’s market especially that the macroeconomic indicators show improvements and the economic growth is increasing to over 5% annually.

Notably, Japanese automotive companies discuss with Egypt’s government new investment incentives to keep enlarging their factories in the Egyptian market, following the recent developments of the country’s taxes policy, Japanese ambassador, Masaki Noke, told Daily New Egypt on 4 February.

“If Japanese cars can be imported free of taxes from Europe to Egypt, Japanese companies won’t be interested in producing here but they will be keen on producing cars in Europe to export them free of customs to Egypt,” the ambassador noted.

Additionally, Omura said that Egypt’s current presidency of the African Union (AU) provides a good opportunity for boosting joint efforts in Africa as it coincides with Japan’s hosting Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD 7) in August.

For his part, Noke continued preparations for a 50-firm delegation’s visit to Egypt in March. The delegation will meet with Egypt’s Minister of Trade and Industry, Amr Nassar, according to a ministerial statement on Monday.

Earlier, the Minister of Investment and International Cooperation, Sahar Nasr, met with Noke and representatives from Japan External Trade Organisation (JETRO) and JICA to discuss preparations for the coming visit, according to a Wednesday’ statement.