Sahar Nasr, the Minister of Investment and International Cooperation and the Egyptian governor at the World Bank, announced that the executive board of the international finance corporation (IFC) has agreed to inject new direct investments in the agriculture sector in Egypt worth $150m in the form of partnership investments between the government and the private sector.
Nasr said investments aimed at developing the population, health, and nutrition sector using the latest technological systems in manufacturing and through providing job opportunities, especially among the youth.
She said that this decision came a day after the agreement between President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi and President of the World Bank Group Jim Yong Kim to intensify mutual cooperation during the coming period between Egypt and all sectors of the World Bank, including the IFC.
The agreement between Al-Sisi and Yong Kim came on the sidelines of the 72nd session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA 72).
In the same context the president of the World Bank group promised to implement cooperation programmes with Egypt and to develop the consultation and coordination frameworks between the two sides, especially as the World Bank views Egypt as a successful model in implementing the necessary economic reforms.
In another context, Nasr said the decision was also made four days after the executive board of the International Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) provided guarantees to a number of major international companies involved in the world’s largest solar energy project in Aswan, Egypt, worth $210m.
Under this project, six groups of international and Egyptian private sector companies will construct 11 solar fields at a total cost of $730m with a capacity of 500 MW, according to Nasr.
The minister pointed out that MIGA’s decisions was the first of its kind seven years ago.
This project is co-financed by the IFC and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) with total investments worth $2bn, Nasr said.
The minister concluded that she hopes to see more cooperation between Egypt and the World Bank group and injection of new investment through her participation in the annual meeting of World Bank in Washington next October.
