Dr. Thani Ahmed Al-Zeyoudi, Minister of Climate Change and Environment, was today briefed on the progress of the Emirates Global Aluminium’s (EGA) Government Accelerators project at Al Taweelah smelter, which aims to significantly reduce nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions in just 100 days.

The 100-day project of the EGA, in partnership with the Ministry and GE, is to reduce its NOx emissions by 10 percent by the end of February next year. The project will enhance air quality at a rate similar to taking 280,000 cars off the UAE roads.

Abdulla Kalban, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of EGA, received the Minister.

EGA is taking part in the Government Accelerators programme, an initiative of the Vice President and Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, to achieve rapid progress to meet government objectives.

The EGA project is one of the five taking part in the first round of the Government Accelerators programme and the only one undertaken by an industrial company.

"Air quality is one of the priorities in the UAE because of its health, economic and environmental impacts, and the National Agenda aims to raise the rate of air quality in the UAE from around 70 percent at present to 90 percent by 2021. We believe that the state-of-the-art technology and innovative practices and tools are an important and essential part of the spectrum of solutions to deal with the growing challenges that we face in our quest to achieve our national aspirations," Al-Zeyoudi said.

"We are confident that the EGA’s team is well capable of achieving this scale of improvement in just 100 days and the EGA has the support of the Ministry in making this ambitious goal a reality," he added.

"We are under no illusions about the challenge of making such a significant leap forward in environmental performance in such a short time, but we are confident that we can get it done. We are honoured that the EGA has been chosen as one of the first to participate in His Highness’s Government Accelerators programme," Kalban of EGA said.