(Yicai) May 8 -- The Egyptian plant of Chinese home appliance giant Haier Smart Home has officially come on stream. This is the first production base built by the Qingdao-based firm in Africa.

Haier recently inaugurated the first phase of its Haier Egypt Ecological Park in 10th of Ramadan, a city near Cairo. It produces air conditioners, televisions, and washing machines.

Haier started the construction of Haier Egypt Ecological Park last year, with a total investment of USD135 million. The second phase of the project will produce refrigerators and freezers. Once fully operational, Haier Egypt Ecological Park will have an annual production capacity of 1.5 million household appliances, creating about 3,000 local jobs.

Haier Egypt Ecological Park serves as Haier’s home appliance manufacturing base in the Middle East and North Africa regions, meeting the local needs of Egypt, as well as the demand from Central and Eastern Africa and Europe, Haier’s Vice President Song Yujun said at the inauguration ceremony on May 2.

Haier is not the only Chinese home appliance firm investing in Egypt, a country located at the junction of Asia, Africa, and Europe.

Last November, Midea held a ground-breaking ceremony for its third factory in Egypt, with a total investment of CNY830 million (USD115 million). The refrigerator and washing machine plant is expected to be ready in the second half of next year. 

Egypt has become one of Midea’s most important overseas manufacturing bases because the country has a population of 110 million people with growing consumption needs and also many custom unions that facilitate exports to neighboring markets, Vice President Wang Jianguo recently told Yicai.

Skyworth Group has also started to look for partners in Egypt to set up an assembly plant there. “Egypt’s import tariffs on machines are very high, but those on machine parts have preferences,” according to an official at the Shenzhen-based company. “Therefore, it is an inevitable trend to set up factories in the country or strengthen cooperation with local partners.”

In recent years, the Middle East and North Africa have become the main overseas growth points of Chinese home appliance exports. Egypt is the first choice for Chinese home appliance makers planning to invest in the above two regions because of the geographical advantage of covering Europe and the League of Arab States, Zhou Nan, secretary general of the Household Appliance Branch of the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Machinery and Electronic Products, told Yicai.

Editors: Dou Shicong, Futura Costaglione