Egypt’s Finance Minister Mohamed Maait affirmed that the government aims to expand the presidential initiative to replace obsolete vehicles that have been manufactured 20 years or more ago with new cars powered by natural gas, in conjunction with the upcoming COP27 conference in November, by including new cities.
Citizens of Upper Egypt’s Luxor and Aswan have been alreadt allowed to join the project. This will contribute to increasing the number of beneficiaries from the initiative in a way that maximizes the efforts of green transformation and enables citizens to own new cars instead of vehicles that are more than 20 years old, reported Egypt Today.
The initiative’s website allows citizens to know the value of the monthly installments which extend to 7-10 years based on the type of the vehicle. In this regard, the state’s treasury has endured a cost of LE 570 million for the green incentives to limit air pollution and reduce carbon emissions.
As many as 23,730 vehicles have been allocated and more than 23,447 old cars have been scrapped, Tamer Abdel Zaher, the initiative’s spokesman said. The number of applicants eligible have reached more than 40,000 on the project’s website.
In December 2020, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi ordered offering citizens with old vehicles a proper cash incentive in the event of replacing their vehicles with new ones that work with CNG.
In January 2021, then-Minister of Trade and Industry Nevine Gamea said Egypt plans to convert 150,000 old vehicles to new ones powered by natural gas as part of the initiative. The state also seeks to scrap as many as 250,000 old cars and to replace them with new bi-fuel ones, Gamea said.
