€500K grant aims to develop urban transport sector

CAIRO – 22 November 2017: A €500 thousand grant agreement was signed on Wednesday aiming to boost the Urban Support Organization in Egypt and improve its capacity to handle the rush of daily commuters.

Minister of Investment and International Cooperation, Sahar Nasr signed the agreement on behalf of the Egyptian government; the other signers and collaborators included Stephanie Lanfranchi, director of the French Development Agency (AFD) in Cairo, and Jean-Jacques Halin, executive director of the French Cooperation Foundation for Development and Improvement of Urban Transport in Developing Countries.

Lanfranchi stressed the significance of providing the necessary technical support to the transport sector in Egypt and making use of the French expertise in this area.

The agreement aims to improve the railway system through providing the maintenance needed to both the metro and Alexandria’s tram lines, which will consecutively help reduce the costs of operation; as well as improving the metro’s ticketing system to further boost the commercial revenues coming out of the metro and tram stations.

An immediate action plan will be announced, improving the overall design of the Alexandria’s tram stations and of Cairo’s transitional stations on the third line of the metro.

Nasr pointed out the importance of linking Cairo to the new cities through urban transport which would increase the trade interactions and investment in those areas. She also referred to a new law being drafted by the government which aims to regulate the services of ride-hailing applications such as UBER.

The French Development Agency has previously contributed to the financing of a number of important projects, notably the third line of the Cairo metro (phases II and III), the financing of small and medium projects in the field of agriculture and projects pertaining both to the supply of the natural gas for homes, and improving the sanitation of drinking water supplies.