The Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Investment announced signing an agreement between 13 funding parties and several companies to establish a plant that produces 530,000 tons of sugar annually, at LE2.5 billion in Salehia, Sharqiya Governorate.
Mounir Fakhry Abdel Nour, Minister of Commerce, Industry and Investment, said that the new project is expected to fill 25 percent of the deficit of sugar on the domestic market, equal to one million ton a year. The project will have a positive impact in turn on the balance of payments, Abdel Nour added.
Abdel Nour said, in a statement after the agreement was signed yesterday, the project, which will be established on an area of 420 acres, offers 3,000 direct job opportunities and 50,000 others indirectly. Actual production is planned to start in 2016.
Abdel Nour mentioned that regional and international funding institutions, including the Islamic Development Bank, the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development, the Sugar and Integrated Industries Company and Al Nouran Multitrading Company, the main shareholder, are taking part in the project.
The project will provide byproducts like feed, molasses and liquid sugar and will reduce Egypt's imports of sugar, Abdel Nour said.
The Cabinet gives the food industry great importance to provide the needs of citizens of consumer goods, and to ensure their availability at affordable prices to low-income people, he added.
Ashraf Mahmoud, CEO of Al Nouran Company said the agreement achieves the vertical integration of the cultivation, industry and trade sectors of sugar. He added that Egypt, Bloom, and Abu Dhabi Islamic banks will manage and arrange a loan equal to LE1.5 billion for the project.
The Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector, one of the institutions of the Islamic Development Bank, provided the loan budget equal to US$30 million.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
