Market opportunities in Egypt

Egypt is a country of huge projects. In less than a decade, 30 new cities have been raised. 400 billion euros have been invested in the infrastructure and new projects are constantly announced. The country expands mainly eastbound of the capital Cairo, where ports, roads are built and modernized. Production facilities are brought available such as at the Suez Special Economic zone. Egypt is as well constructing a massive irrigation system to have new arable land available for food production.

Megaprojects create a strong demand for various investment products, which is a stronghold of Finnish exports, in particular:

  • Circular economy solutions, recovering waste streams from industry and agriculture

  • Waste management: mechanical and biological treatment of municipal waste, waste water treatment

  • Education: vocational education, teacher training, universities of applied science

  • ICT, digital transformation, fintech, fiber optics

  • Healthcare, upgrade of the health insurance system, medical facilities

As a European Neighborhood country Egypt has access to Global Gateway funding, which has so far initiated three projects in the country. While large infrastructure projects may be unsuitable for most Finnish exporting companies, they can benefit from derived demand and subcontracting opportunities from these projects. Latest information on the market situation in Egypt is available by the Embassy of Finland in Cairo.

There are market opportunities in a smaller context as well. For example, the government of Egypt runs a program “Decent Life”, which aims at bringing good basic living conditions available for remote villages and cities throughout Egypt. Decentralized decision making and the smaller scale of projects create  business opportunities for Finnish small and medium-sized companies in various fields.

Finland has a reputation as a trustable partner dating from the development co-operation period that started in 1980’s. Finnish timber has been exported to Egypt already for a hundred years. Based on the mutual goodwill built, Finnish exporters have a good starting point in developing market operations. Companies are encouraged to be active in identifying their specific market opportunities and to understand the way of doing business here. The Embassy can help. We meet key counterparts regularly and can advise on good practices in enlarging your business in Egypt.