Egyptian billionaire Mohamed Mansour said he's cut his investments in social media including stakes in Twitter and Meta Platforms Inc. while boosting his involvement in green projects, like building electric cars for the Middle East's most populous country.
Mansour, whose family's wealth is valued at $6.8 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, plans to produce 15,000 electric vehicles in Egypt over the next three to five years through his company Al-Mansour Automotive, which has a long-running partnership with General Motors Co. It also plans to import and market five models of Cadillac EVs by 2025.
“I feel it's going to be a big success,” Mansour, 74, said in an interview in Sharm El-Sheikh, site of this year's United Nations climate change conference. He said his almost 50 years of experience in the automotive sector helps him “understand what's marketable and what's not.”
By the end of the decade, more than 77 million passenger EVs will be on the road globally, according to BloombergNEF research. That's almost triple the current number.
“We want to be a leader in that aspect,” said Mansour.
The use of electric cars in Egypt, which is home to about 104 million people, is still extremely limited. A government official last year estimated that only a few hundred of the vehicles are plying the busy streets. But there are signs that's changing, with state-backed plans to build affordable vehicles and open a network of charging stations.
Egypt Seeks to Build $20,000 Electric Vehicles in Green Push
Mansour has been running the family's conglomerate -- which originated as a cotton exporter in 1952 -- since his father's death 46 years ago. It has since diversified into real estate, food services and manufacturing,
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