We’re getting a new Chinese partner for EVs: State-owned El Nasr Automotive will sign next week with an unnamed Chinese company to locally assemble electric vehicles (EVs), El Nasr CEO Hany El Kholy told Enterprise. The upcoming agreement for the assembly of the EVs will be “very different” from the abandoned pact with Chinese auto firm Dongfeng, he said, declining to get into further details right now.

Operation Replace Dongfeng: The government has been in talks with companies to replace Dongfeng since negotiations with the Chinese firm collapsed in November over an import pricing dispute.

It doesn’t look like the new partner is going to be helping out with production or stumping up capital: El Kholy said that the company will not be involved in the assembly process and won’t make any investments into the project. Instead, it will give us the “know-how,” he said. The government is currently in talks with a separate private-sector firm to assemble the vehicles alongside El Nasr, El Kholy added.

Dongfeng had been set for a bigger role under the previous plan, which saw it earmark USD 12 mn for EV assembly with El Nasr as part of a USD 60 mn plan. The company would also have rehabilitated a mothballed factory owned by the state-owned firm.

We have the dealer lined up: El Nasr and the National Automotive Company (NATCO) will jointly set up Egypt’s first EV dealer, which will be the sole distributor of the vehicles that roll off the production line.