By Muhammed Aladdin
In an official statement released on Monday, the Egyptian Ministry of the Interior announced the issuing of temporary license plates and insured licenses to electric car owners until laws and procedures regulating the vehicles are regulated.
The ruling comes as part of the government’s keenness to facilitate regulations on Egyptians who have imported electric cars from abroad.
Traffic departments all over Egypt are now authorized to provide owners of electric vehicles with license plates and permits under the Egyptian traffic law and its bylaws. However, the ministry has stressed that the ruling is temporary until more permanent procedures are put into place by lawmakers.
As the world moves towards a battery-powered automobile market, Egypt is taking its first steps down the road. The leading African nation has set its eyes on embracing the new technologies and integrating it.
In April, for instance, Egypt’s government signed an agreement with Foton Motors, a Beijing-based electric automobile production company, to manufacture electric buses in Egypt.
Not only that but in February 2018, the country opened its first electric vehicle charging unit on the Cairo-Suez highway. The company behind the project, Revolta Egypt, is an all Egyptian developer of electric-vehicle infrastructure and other electric-vehicle related projects.
In an effort to be less dependent on fossil fuel to decrease emission levels, Egypt aims to boost its use of renewable energy to 22%. Sustainable transport has been one of the key aspects of Egypt’s developmental goals that the country aims to achieve by 2030.
According to a report by the International Energy Agency (IEA) published in May 2018, the number of electric vehicles on roads around the world rose to a record high of 3.1 million in 2017, an increase of 57% compared to 2016.