(Photo by Hassan Ibrahim/DNE)
The Saudi-Egyptian Businesmen’s Association (SEBA) will invest in an agricultural project to be presented at March’s Economic Summit, Ahmed Sabry Darwish, a member of SEBA’s Board of Directors, told Daily News Egypt Sunday.
Darwish said that a total of EGP 7.5bn will be injected into the agricultural project.
The project is to be developed over four phases of 1m acres each, with the first phase expected to be completed by 2017.
Darwish revealed that SEBA has obtained a total of 250,000 acres out of the million, where each acre was sold at a price of EGP 30,000.
Total investments for the project amount to EGP30bn, and the final delivery for all four phases is expected by 2030, according to previous statements by Minister of Agriculture and Land Reclamation Adel El-Beltagy.
A meeting was held Saturday between El-Beltagy and a SEBA delegation to discuss the first operational procedures for the cultivation of the first phase of the project, according to a Sunday SEBA statement.
The meeting also included the presence of boards and heads of 30 Saudi, Egyptian and Emirati companies. The meeting is a preparatory procedure before a further meeting expected to take place with Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, the statement added.
The project aims to create new industrial and farming communities to eliminate the phenomenon of over-population in the Wadi and Delta areas. It will be provided through direct or indirect usufruct basis where it will be directed towards youth, including fresh graduates and young farmers. It is aimed that those recipients will benefit from it in the form of joint stock companies or cooperative societies. The project will also be targeted towards senior companies and investors.
