El Nasr for Manufacturing Agricultural Crops plans to turn to profitability this year, following the incurred losses that faced the company and put it out of business in the past three years, before, finally, coming back online again in the last quarter of the past fiscal year.
Chairperson of the company, Mohamed Mekkawy, said that the company began production in Beni Suef plant in January, after a three-year halt. He added that the company should become profitable in the first quarter of the coming fiscal year. The company incurred losses in the first quarter of this fiscal year of EGP 5.3m.
Mekkawy said that El Nasr for Manufacturing Agricultural Crops plans to establish a new factory in Sohag to produce dried onions on an area of 13,000 sqm and with investments of up to EGP 20m, as the current plant has stopped due to ageing machinery.
He explained that the company is currently negotiating with the governorate of Sohag to obtain a new plot of land to build a factory, considering the difficulty of renovating the existing one.
Meanwhile, he said that the company aims to produce 3,000 tonnes of dried onions this year through the factory in Beni Suef, adding that the company will export 75% of its production and keep the remaining for the local market.
He added that the company is negotiating with the Industrial Modernisation Centre and a risk fund for financing stalled projects to obtain funding of EGP 20m. The company has managed to pay its indebtedness to the Bank of Alexandria, worth EGP 13.6m, after selling land in Kafr Selim worth EGP 29.54m at EGP 1,300 per sqm.
He pointed out that the remaining value will be directed to the new plant in Beni Suef. He added that every 10 tonnes of onions outputs only one tonne of dried onions.
Moreover, Mekkawy said that the company plans to enter the United States within the framework of the Qualifying Industrial Zones (QIZ) agreement, which would require buying new machinery from Israel.
El Nasr for Manufacturing Agricultural Crops has addressed a manufacturing company in the Netherlands, which is now about to begin manufacturing the machine for sorting the onions and maintain quality. The new machine will be shipped within three months at a cost of EGP 370,000.
Mekkawy said that the German market accounts for 75% of the company’s annual exports, noting that it distributes products to other neighbouring markets, as well as to the British, Dutch, and Russian markets, while Arab countries are the lowest share of exports. El Nasr for Manufacturing Agricultural Crops ceased production for three years due to lack of liquidity, after building its Beni Suef plant.
Mekkawy said that the political events witnessed in Egypt since 2011 damaged the company’s ability to work due to poor economic conditions, high prices of many products and agricultural crops, in addition to high prices of inputs.
