Aluminium foil import in Egypt picks up in tandem with the global trend

Egypt is one of the major markets in the MENA region (Middle East and North Africa), where aluminium industry in spite of being low-cost due to availability of cheap fuel has been challenged by three interlocking crises since years- pure energy being exported to the international market, minimal existence of downstream applications, and almost zero economic value-addition. However, with the global economy changing the MENA countries too are stepping up their downstream manufacturing pursuits.

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Consumer packaging sector which earlier depended largely on plastics is slowly shifting to more sustainable materials such as aluminium, and aluminium foils for which there was hardly any traction in the domestic market is slowly picking up depending mostly on imports.



                     Image Courtesy: Frost & Sullivan

Egypt imported a total volume of 22,838 tonnes of aluminium foil in 2014, which went up in 2015 to total at 28,446 tonnes, up 24.5 per cent year-over-year. In 2016, the total import of aluminium foils in Egypt is estimated to surge further to reach 31,527 tonnes, up 10.8 per cent from 2015.


Value-wise total aluminium foil import of Egypt totalled at US$88.9 million in 2014. In 2015, the value surged to touch US$94.7 million, marking a significant YOY rise of 6.5 per cent. In 2016, total aluminium foil import in Egypt is estimated to reach US$0.1 billion, up 11.5 per cent from 2015.


The Egyptian government has very recently announced a few revisions in the country's economic and foreign policies. The Egyptian currency has been liberalised, tariffs on fuel price have been raised and import tariffs have been hiked for commodities like aluminium. It is to be seen how these policy revisions impact on aluminium downstream products in the long run.