In 2021, GE expanded its presence in Egypt, a strategic growth market for the company, through diverse initiatives in energy, healthcare, and social empowerment
Egypt, the largest nation in the Arab world by population, has been a strategic market for GE, where it has had a strong presence for nearly five decades. Through in-country offices and a dedicated workforce of over 200 employees, the company has been supporting the nation’s progress through wide-ranging initiatives, especially in the vital sectors of energy and healthcare.
Over the years, GE has partnered with several leading public and private sector organisations on projects across the country in energy, aviation, and healthcare. The company supports Egypt’s focus on sustainable energy initiatives, improved healthcare access and outcomes, and overall growth and development.
“With our strong history of operations in the country, we are committed to supporting the nation in driving its sustained growth,” said Mai Abdelhalim, President – Egypt for GE International Markets. “This has been underlined in 2021 when we further enhanced our operations in core sectors such as energy and healthcare, especially as Egypt focuses on power sector efficiency and in scaling up public healthcare campaigns. We are committed to the progress of the nation and will continue to explore new opportunities for partnerships in sectors that support Egypt’s infrastructure development.”
Having built strong credentials through its partnership on projects such as the Cairo North plant, Kuraymat plant, and Damietta, GE has supported the expansion of the Giza North and Banha power plants. With a focus on advancing energy efficiency, GE has provided digital energy solutions to the Energy Management System (EMS) regional control center in Upper Egypt, including smart meters.
GE also has a strong footprint in the country’s healthcare sector, having joined hands with the Egyptian Ministry of Health (MOH) on numerous programs. In July 2019, Egypt’s Ministry of Health and Population launched the Women’s Health Initiative, a program to improve early detection of breast cancer, hypertension, diabetes, osteoporosis, and heart disease. The initiative, which has a goal of reaching around 30 million women above the age of 18, has already impacted 21 million women.
This year, in collaboration with Ministry of Health, GE Healthcare, Gustave Roussy and Egypt’s Ministry of Health signed an agreement leveraging Gustave Roussy’s one-stop breast cancer diagnostics program to increase the speed and the accuracy of breast cancer diagnosis in Egypt. The collaboration aims to accelerate this initiative for early detection of breast cancer through the creation of rapid breast cancer diagnosis clinics in four sites in Egypt.
In strategic initiatives, GE launched a Pink October campaign in Egypt under the theme “Please Don’t Skip.” This complements the nation-wide efforts to address the rising incidence of breast cancer. According to reports, breast cancer is the most common cancer in women in Egypt, accounting for 35% of cancers with around 22,000 cases diagnosed in 2020. This year, GE invited all female employees, along with women from select partner companies, for a full-scale breast cancer awareness program. The program included awareness trainings for breast self-examination, the importance of early detection, a focus on reproductive health, clinical breast examinations, breast scans, blood pressure measurement, body glucose assessments, and a body mass index calculation.
To facilitate this program, a mobile GE Healthcare Mammogram and Ultrasound unit was placed at an MOH mobile unit outside GE offices, for screenings for women 40 and above, or those with suspected cases from the initial physical examination. All COVID-19 precautions are in place to ensure a safe and secure experience.
Another MOH partnership resulted in the RIS PACS program, a ground-breaking initiative providing a paperless/filmless solution to ensure timely reporting and the resourcing of radiologists. The RIS PACS program links six strategic hospitals to a Centre of Excellence where exams from all modality types can be reported rapidly.
GE Healthcare also supports the Children’s Cancer Hospital Egypt (CCHE), the largest pediatric oncology center of its kind in the Middle East and Africa, having installed its PETtrace 6 cyclotron with a complete radiopharmacy suite, making it the first new-generation cyclotron production facility in Egypt. With its strong history of supporting the Egyptian National Breast Screening Program through GE’s digital mammography mobile systems, GE also partners on the National Breast Cancer Detection and Screening Program with the Ministry of Health.
Finally, as part of the company’s commitment to empowering the community, GE Healthcare and the National Bank of Egypt signed a cooperation protocol that aims to support small and medium medical service providers with affordable financing solutions to purchase GE’s advanced medical equipment. The agreement builds on the government’s ongoing efforts to develop the small and medium enterprises (SME) sector and create job opportunities for Egyptian youth, in addition to catalysing economic growth, given the important role that SMEs play in driving social and economic progress.
Highlighting its support to promote Egypt’s energy sector diversification, GE received the EMCN (Engineering & Manufacturing Commencement Notice) for Units 3 and 4 of the El Dabaa Nuclear Power Plant. GE has commenced the manufacturing of blades for the Arabelle steam turbines as well as turbine and generator rotors, with a critical milestone of blade manufacturing start completed in November 2021, signed by the Egyptian owner NPPA.
With 4.8GW of CO2-free energy, GE Power’s Arabelle TM steam turbines will deliver enough CO2-free electricity to power more than 4 million homes. GE Power’s Arabelle half-speed steam turbine has a reliability rate of 99.96%, demonstrated in France, and is today providing more than 20 GW of power in nuclear power plants around the world.
GE Power has also been associated with building and connecting the Badr substation in Egypt to the national grid. The 500/220 kilovolt (kV) Gas-Insulated Substation dispatches 1.5 GW of electricity and plays a strategic role in the Egypt – Saudi Arabia Interconnection, linking the national grids of both countries with a 1,300-kilometer transmission line.
Digital transformation is also a key initiative GE is proud to have partnered with Egypt on. At the end of 2021, the Egyptian Ministry of Military Production presented GE with an award recognizing its partnership in supporting the digital transformation of the Ministry’s factories. The company has also deployed an Industry 4.0 applications project to further optimize operations, reduce costs, and enhance efficiency, and launched a national initiative to train 1000 Egyptian engineers on Industry 4.0 technology with a certified GE program. GE is continuing to explore new collaborations to support the country’s digital transformation.
GE has been a committed partner to Egypt for decades and will continue, through strategic initiatives such as these, to work with and support the communities of Egypt with access to critical digital, healthcare and power needs.
