Sisi: Egypt needs about $100bln over 7 years to fulfill import gap

Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said on Thursday that the country needs not less than $100 billion over seven years to fulfil the import gap, which amounts about $30 billion annually.

The government is commitment to provide a strategic stock of basic commodities, despite difficult economic conditions and the high cost required to provide this in the markets, al-Sisi assured.

al-Sisi delivered his speech during the inauguration of the Silo Foods project’s second phase, in Sadat City to increase the area of land cultivated with soybeans by about 250,000 feddans.

This will increase the production of oils and limit imports, Sisi said, pointing out that Egypt currently imports about 90 percent of its needs of edible oils.

He continued that the government plants next year to cultivate 500,000 feddans with soybeans to increase the volume of production.

Egypt needs to increase the storage capacity of grains up to six million tons of wheat, rice and corn, and urged the private sector to contribute to increasing the storage capacity so that Egypt would be a logistical hub for storage.

The President continued that “the factory we are opening today, despite its size, is not large enough and covers only 18 percent of domestic consumption, as it took a long time to build it.”