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Inside his workshop in Kerdasa, a village in the Giza governorate, Ahmed Saeed is working on developing a local alternative to the auto-rickshaws or ‘tuk-tuks’ that began to colonise Egypt’s streets years ago.

Saeed says his car is safer ‒ as a four-wheeled vehicle it is more stable than tuk-tuks, which are involved in many accidents in Egypt.

It can also save the country millions in pounds paid to import tuk-tuks every year, he claims. “The Mini-Car is a very cheap alternative to any similar car in Egypt, priced between US $1,700 and US $1,900,” says Saeed.

The mini-car is almost entirely locally produced, with cheap spare parts that can be easily found in the Egyptian market.

Saeed is producing his car without any governmental support. Although other countries have shown interest, he hopes Egypt will develop the industrial capacity to support inventions such as this one.

This article was produced SciDev.Net’s Middle East and North Africa desk