Egypt’s Banque du Caire lead arranger for €150 mln wood factory loan

Egypt’s Banque du Caire is the lead arranger for a €150 million ($166.2 million) loan to help state-owned Egyptian Petrochemicals Holding Company (Echem) build an MDF wood factory.

The loan will partially finance the establishment of the factory, which will be with a capacity up to 205,000 tonnes of wood.

The factory, to be located in Idku City on the Mediterranean coast, is the first project of its kind in the Middle East to produce MDF wood by using rice straw – once used to be burned by farmers to cause one of Cairo’s ugliest features, a huge black cloud. The total cost of the establishment of the factory amounts to €215 million. The factory will adopt the latest German technologies.