Egypt to build biggest car tire factory in Mideast

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt is planning to build the biggest car tire factory in the Middle East at a cost of 600 million Egyptian pounds ($109 million), the state news agency MENA quoted an industry executive as saying on Saturday.

Egypt has tried to spur industrial exports as a way of buoying economic growth and providing jobs for its 77 million people, but the global financial crisis and competition from Asian manufacturers have curbed some of its efforts.

"Domestic tire exports face big problems due to the entrance of Chinese producers in African markets, particularly the COMESA nations, at very low prices," the agency quoted Taher Salama, head of the state-owned Transport and Engineering Company (Trenco), as saying.

COMESA is the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa.

The new factory will be able to produce half a million tires annually, the report said. It will take two years to build and will be located in El-Amerya, west of the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria.

Egyptian, Arab and foreign investors will take part in the factory's financing, the report said without naming specific investors. Trenco currently exports to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states and plans to export to Sudan, it added.

($1=5.500 Egyptian Pound)

(Reporting by Alexander Dziadosz; editing by David Stamp)