Egypt is trying to take advantage of the escalating crisis between China’s mobile smartphone companies and India by providing facilities that would encourage these companies to invest in the Egyptian market.

On Sept. 13, Cairo signed a memorandum of understanding with the Chinese consumer electronics manufacturer Oppo under which the Chinese company will establish a mobile phone factory in Egypt, with a production capacity of 4.5 million units per year at a cost of $20 million.

In an article published Sept. 14, the Chinese English-language newspaper Global Times quoted an India-based Chinese executive as saying that the deal to establish a factory in Egypt “may herald an exodus of Chinese mobile phone firms from India amid the country's escalating crackdown on Chinese companies.”

The source, who requested anonymity, added to the paper, “The management in Chinese smartphone brands in India felt a palpable sense of being squeezed by the Indian government's crackdown and its [protectionist] actions to improve domestic companies' capability to make sophisticated electronics such as smartphones.”