Egypt’s Minister of Agriculture and Land Reclamation ElSayed ElKosayer has approved EGP 59.5m in funding to develop 42 milk collection centres in 6 governorates.
The funding will be provided through the Agricultural Bank of Egypt (ABE), and will be used to establish, develop, and raise the efficiency and operation of the 42 milk collection centres.
ElKosayer said that milk collection centres have been termed as small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to benefit from the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) initiative offering 5% interest on financing.
Milk collection centre owners have also been exempted from the legal requirement for financing. They have also been exempted from the interest in establishing new milk collection centres in places where small dairy cattle breeders and dairy producers are located.
ElKosayer stressed his Ministry’s keenness to raise the efficiency and development of existing milk collection centres through soft bank loans.
This comes in accordance with the standard specifications to keep pace with international standards, which will lead to obtaining fresh, good quality dairy products for consumption or processing.
The move also aims to open new horizons for the export of Egypt’s dairy products abroad, which leads to improving the yield of dairy production for small farmers, especially as the dairy collection centres are the marketing outlets for small milk cattle keepers.
Mostafa Al-Sayyad, Deputy Minister of Agriculture for Livestock, Fisheries and Poultry, said that a technical committee has been formed to assess field-based milk collection centres on the ground, and determine the development needs of each centre. The centres will submit its technical report for presentation to the coordination committee, to decide on the approval of the necessary financing after completing the credit studies by the financing banks.
Al-Sayyad emphasised the importance of establishing dairy collection centres in the governorates of Upper Egypt, which have a high density of livestock but which lack dairy collection centres.
He added that the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation and the Ministry of Military Production are coordinating to provide the necessary equipment to dairy collection centres. He noted that this represents a national industry characterised by high quality and better prices.
Tarek Suleiman, head of the Ministry of Agriculture’s animal and poultry wealth development sector, said that Minister ElKosayer agreed to establish 10 new centres. These will be affiliated with the ministry in accordance with the standard specifications to serve small milk cattle breeders and dairy producers, and to serve as models for the private sector.
The centres are to be located in the governorates of Sohag, Assiut, Minya, South Sinai, Gharbeya, Beheira, in addition to two centres in Fayoum and Kafr El-Sheikh.
The livestock and poultry development sector appeals to dairy gathering centre owners to take advantage of the available financing opportunities provided by the state. It will help them to develop and raise the efficiency of their centres according to the standard specifications.
This initiative can be reached on WhatsApp numbers (01558626681 – 01558626682).
