Interview with Mahmoud Mounir Soliman, Chairman of Euroquarzo

Please give us a general evaluation of the paint sector in Egypt.

The paint sector in Egypt is an industry of 2 to 3 billion Egyptian pounds. There are major players, medium players and small players in this field, but totally it amounts 3 billion Egyptian Pounds.

What is your position in this industry?

We are one of the top 20. There are about 150 paint manufacturers in Egypt. We are in the top 20.

Would you identify Pachin or Jotun as your main competitors?

Yes, Pachin, SCIB, Kapci, Sipes, Jotun are our main competitors.

What products do Euroquarzo bring into the market?

We produce paints required for the houses as well as the industrial and productive paints.

Where do you see the highest demand for this?

The highest demand is in the decorative paints due to the construction industry and due to the construction potential in Egypt. I think that the decorative segments will be booming in the next few years.

Please give us a portfolio of your clients. What is the breakdown?

Our clients are divided into two main segments, project and retail. Project entails the residential areas, industrial areas and all such areas handled by developers or the contractors. We also have a big segment for individuals like individual villas, apartments, houses etc. We are also involved with the retail shops, the sale to the end-users.

How long have you been present in the market? What is the story of the company?

The company was started in 1979. We were the market leaders manufacturing paint in Egypt that time, because back then there were very few manufacturers. The map of paint manufacturers in Egypt was not very big. We first produced decorative paints and then moved on to industrial paints and completed our range of productive and marine coatings.

Speaking about the Euroquarzo Group, how many companies are involved here?

There are about 14 companies under the umbrella of this group. Some are in the industrial fields, some in the surface and some are into trading, some are into real estate and some are into food.  

How do you stand out from your competitors? What are your values, strong points?

Our strongest point is that we specialize in the manufacture of external paints. This gives us a competitive edge.

What will be your strategy for 2015?

Our strategy will be to support our decorative range, to increase the product range for decorative and household paints and work on special effects with the paints. We just got back from an exhibition in Dubai, where we came across some special effects that can be brought about with paints. We will be introducing this in the Egyptian market.

Do you have any big projects coming up?

We are working on some projects like some compounds and some big projects. We would also like to involve even in the Suez Canal projects as well.

How many factories do you have?

We have about 4 factories, two in Ramadan industrial area and two in ....

Are you planning on any expansion?

Of course, in the coming months, we will be expanding in other directions such as a convenience store in Egypt. We are now the master franchisee of one of the biggest convenience stores, which is located in the United States and it is ranked second in the world. We will be expanding in this business to open a convenience store in Egypt.

Tell us a bit about your CSR activities. You are running a paint school in cooperation with the Ministry.

We are trying to build up a paint academy to train people in the art of applying paint and to create awareness in this. We started this project 2 years ago, but unfortunately things didn’t work out. But right now we are thinking reopening this academy to train people. We want to create awareness among the people that paint is not for decorative purpose alone, it also offers protection. The main function of the paint is not only to serve as a decoration or design alone.

What would you identify as the main challenges when it comes to doing business in Egypt?

The main challenge is that you have to build up a strong R&D and to keep it going. The paint equipment as such does not amount to heavy investment, but what really counts in this field is to develop new products and introduce new materials in the market. Our main target for the coming years is to work more on our R&D and on training our people how to keep up the R&D to introduce new products in the market.

How many employees do you have?

In the group we have 1,250 employees. It is divided into different sectors and industries – real estate, transportation, logistics and trading in convenience store etc. but totally, we have around 1250 people working for us.

Are they mostly Egyptians?

Most of them are Egyptians. We have some experts from Jordan and so on, but most of them are Egyptians. We have our Egyptian Human Resources and we have the capability of finding the right people to match our requirement.

Is there anything in specific that you would like to say about the company?

I would like to say something about the country itself. Egypt is now considered as an attractive place for foreign investors. We have a project in Egypt that helps people to invest in Egypt easily, and provides them physical protection as well protection in terms of their investments. This helps the country immensely in the coming years in terms of the Suez Canal project and logistics projects, the solar energy projects etc. So we have attractive projects for people to work in or invest in and this will be one of the attractive points of the coming years.

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