Khaled Ouda, geologist and member of Shura Council (upper house of parliament), stated that Egypt seeks to finance projects such as Qattara Depression Project which has investment cost ranging from US$ 100 billion to US$ 110 billion, and has expected revenues from land sale only of US$ 1.2 billion. The project is also expected to create about 200,000 job opportunities just by the beginning of the project, he added.
Ouda confirmed that Egypt has strategic national projects that will achieve high economic returns as well as environmental return. These projects can be financed through sukuk and their ownership will be eventually transferred to the country, he continued.
“Investing in mines may be financed through sukuk, as mining achieve high returns and Egypt has 93 mines unexploited mines. The company investing Sukari Gold Mine injected US$ 350 million since the start of the exploitation, while the volume of extracted gold reached 20 tonnes and the country received US$ 1 billion,” he added.
There are number of projects being studied in the current period such as Bahr El Remal El Azam project which will provide 3.7 million feddans viable for agriculture and Gilf al-Kebir silicon production project.