Three Boat Factories Are Going Up in Safaga on 50,000 Square Metres

Construction is continuing in Safaga on a free industrial zone of close to 50,000 square metres, meant to build boats and marine units on the Red Sea coast itself rather than bring them in from elsewhere, according to Al-Masry Al-Youm.

The zone is being established for Suez Canal Modern Boats Company. Lt. Gen. Osama Rabie, head of the Suez Canal Authority, inspected the construction works, and during the same visit commissioned and took delivery of several new marine units at the South Red Sea shipyard.

The site plan covers more than production lines:

• three new factories
• a covered storage yard and an open storage yard
• an administration building, a residential building and a mosque

Al-Masry Al-Youm says the point of that layout is a self-contained industrial zone, with production, storage, administration and services on one site, so that fabrication, fitting-out and storage need not depend on outside facilities. Beyond the local market, the paper reports the project is also aimed at export, using Safaga's position on the Red Sea and its links to the port and the shipping network.

Gamal al-Selik, a Senate member from Safaga, told the paper the town already has what the marine economy needs — its place on the coast, Safaga port, and its ties to trade, sea transport and tourism — and that a free zone specialising in boatbuilding adds a genuinely new industrial activity to the town, along with support for feeder industries.

For the coast, wide parts of the Red Sea towns' economy run on boats: diving, day trips, leisure sailing, sea transport and port services. A yard building and repairing those vessels locally would sit close to that demand, and the same site is meant to handle repair, maintenance and storage. The report gives no cost for the zone, no completion date, and no figure for the jobs it is expected to create.