Geely Opens New CKD Facility in Egypt to Make Emgrand & Coolray

Geely opens a new CKD plant in Egypt, tasked to produce the local-spec Emgrand sedan and Coolray SUV.

Chinese automaker Geely just inaugurated its new production facility in Egypt. According to Ahram Online, this new facility located in 6 October City will produce the CKD version of the Emgrand sedan and the Coolray SUV, both of which are the base models for the Proton S70 and Proton X50, respectively.

This new CKD plant is borne out of Geely’s partnership with local Egyptian partner Auto Mobility, where it is the automaker’s first industrial venture not only in Egypt, but also in the whole Middle East and North African (MENA) regional market. Featuring two production lines, Geely projects that this new facility can produce up to 10,000 units per year for the local market while facilitating the export of up to 30,000 units per year for the MENA regional market.

This revelation was rather interesting, simply because Proton had just previously commenced the operation of its own CKD plant in Egypt in late last year, where the RM56 million investment will see the left-hand drive (LHD) version of the Proton Saga being produced for local Egyptian market consumption. What’s also intriguing is that Proton’s CKD plant boasts a much higher annual production capacity of 50,000 units compared to Geely’s new plant, which only has a 30,000-unit annual production capacity.

Given that Geely is now making its own presence in the Egyptian market, perhaps Proton’s CKD plant will only be limited to producing its very own budget vehicle lineups, which include the likes of the Saga, Persona, and Iriz, and perhaps future models based on the AMA platform, too. 

This is not the first time Geely has taken matters into its own hands, with the Chinese automaker somewhat retracting its promise to make Malaysia (more specifically the Automotive High-Tech Valley) its regional production and R&D hub. Not only is the automaker entering into major regional right-hand drive (RHD) markets like Thailand, Indonesia, and Australia under Geely’s banner instead of Proton, meaning that these markets are getting the Geely Galaxy E5 EV in the form of the Geely EX5 instead of the Proton eMas 7.