The Minister of Trade and Industry, Rachid Mohamed Rachid, inaugurated three new industrial projects and a one-stop shop at the 6th of October-based Saudi Industrial Zone specializing in building materials.

The new projects' EGP 611 million investments are totally Egyptian. They will be providing over 3,000 new jobs.

Accompanied by the Industrial Development Authority (IDA) chairman, Amr Assal, Minister Rachid opened his tour by inaugurating an Integrated Service Compound at Saudi CPC Industrial Zone- built under the Industrial Developers System with Saudi investments.

This comes as part of Phase One of a program for a new generation of industrial compounds to be built under the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) scheme.

The compound includes a license unit operating with the one-stop shop system and an industrial training center, which provides training programs for factory workers.

He also inaugurated an EGP 230 million ceramics plant that will be providing 1,500 job openings. Its production will hit EGP 300 million on a yearly basis, of which some 40 percent would be exported to Arab and European markets.

Covering an area of 2,000 square meters, the new EGP 12 million one-stop shop will be creating 150 job opportunities to offer a unique package of services for manufacturers pursuant of up-to-date world-class systems.

"This ceramics plant is the first to operate with natural gas in the Industrial Developer zones. The rest of the plants would be supplied with natural gas one by one to streamline investment procedures and reduce production cost," remarked Minister Rachid.

Furthermore, the minister inaugurated Phase One of the two-largest packing materials factories with investments estimated at EGP 350 million.

Their investments climb to EGP 600 million when Phase Two comes to an end at the completion of 2011.

They would be providing some 1,500 direct and indirect job opportunities. The targeted workforce in these two factories is 3,000 workers by 2011's end.

The factories cover the needs of the domestic market as well as exportation requirements.

Minister Rachid inaugurated one more computer and motherboard components factory with 100-percent Egyptian investments to the tune of EGP 19 million.

Exports of that factory are estimated at EGP 26 million. It would be providing 137 job openings.

Eng. Assal said, "Companies founded in 6th of October include the Industrial Development Group (IDG) with pure Egyptian investments to set up auto-feeding industries in an area of 2 million square meters. They also include CPC-Egypt for Industrial Development with Saudi investments in an area of 1.5 million square meters to establish building materials industries and global Polaris International Industrial Parks with Egyptian-Turkish investments to set up apparel and textile industries in an area of 2 million square meters."