(MENAFN- Daily News Egypt) Egypt's Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said that the government is accelerating its efforts to expand the usage of clean energy, and reduce the use of conventional energy, especially diesel fuel.
He revealed that the government will convert minibuses and microbuses to compressed natural gas (CNG), in parallel to supporting local manufacturing of new minibuses and microbuses in Egypt.
This came during a meeting with the heads and representatives of the manufacturers of microbuses and minibuses; to review the government's plan to expand the production of CNG vehicles, and convert old vehicles into ones that operate with CNG as an alternative to diesel.
The programme aims to exploit Egypt's available gas reserves and reduce traditional fuel that has a high import bill on the state budget.
The meeting was attended by Amr Nassar, Minister of Trade; Wael Ammar, Head of the Transportation Division of the Chamber of Engineering Industries; Tamer El Shafei, Head of the Feeding Industries Division of the Chamber of Engineering Industries, and several heads and representatives of the most prominent auto manufacturers in Egypt.
The Prime Minister pointed out that there are nearly 240,000 vehicles (minibuses - microbuses - buses) that operate with diesel, including 88,000 very old vehicles, ageing over 20 years, while the country is still producing new diesel-operated minibuses and microbuses operating with diesel.
"This does not make sense in light of our large reserves of natural gas," Madbouly added.
He asked minibus and microbus manufacturers to agree on a plan to gradually convert production lines to CNG vehicles or dual-cycle vehicles.
Madbouly stressed that Egypt intends to expand natural gas refuelling stations across the country.
For their part, the heads and representatives of auto manufacturers, thanked the Prime Minister and the government for the deep interest in boosting the local manufacturing, stressing that they will be initiate studies on the matter to agree on the plans moving forward.
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