During the pandemic, business continues for Alstom. The French railway manufacturer will supply 55 metro trainsets to the city of Cairo, the capital of Egypt. It costs nearly a billion euros
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Alstom’s contract for the Cairo metro amounts to precisely 876 million euros. The contract was concluded Monday, November 8, for equipment and maintenance for eight years. Line 1 of the Cairo metro is the oldest in the country and it needed a real restoration. In service since 1987, it is used every day by 2.5 million travelers. Africa’s largest megalopolis, whose streets are congested day and night, has seen its population double since the 1980s to today number 20 million.
The 55 metro trains represent nearly 500 cars. All will leave the Alstom sites in Valenciennes-Petite-Forêt, Le Creusot, Villeurbanne and Toulouse. It is the very latest in trains of the model called Metropolis with real-time passenger information systems and wide corridors. Spaces will be reserved for women.
This contract is part of a larger cooperation agreement signed between Egypt and the French government. Visiting Cairo last June, the Minister of the Economy, Finance and Recovery, Bruno Le Maire, signed an intergovernmental agreement providing for nine development projects, in transport but also in energy and the treatment of water, for a total of close to four billion euros. Cairo is also to purchase 30 Rafale fighter jets, missiles and other equipment. Egypt will go into debt over ten years using a loan mechanism largely guaranteed by the French Treasury.
This strategic agreement signed by Bruno Le Maire enables Alstom to fill its order books and secure employment on its various sites. In Egypt, Alstom currently employs 500 people.
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