The Minister of Investment and International Cooperation Dr. Sahar Nasr held a workshop in collaboration with the WB to enhance investments in the sectors of agriculture and agribusiness, in presence of Vice Minister of Finance for Fiscal Policies and Institutional Reform Mr. Ahmed Kouchouk and representatives from the Ministries of Irrigation, Agriculture, and Trade & Industry and several associations investing in the agricultural field as well as officials from the WB and IFC.
At the beginning of the meeting, the WB's officials gave an overview of the preliminary findings obtained with regard to the development of the agriculture sector and its investment opportunities. They presented proposals on enhancing the investment environment in the agriculture sector and on the private sector's needs to enhance investment in agriculture, noting that Egypt had a huge and fast-growing local markets and that the recent economic reforms and the improvement of the investment environment led to encouraging investments in the said sector.
On her part, the Minister emphasized her keenness on enhancing investments in the agriculture sector in coordination with the Ministry of Agriculture and called on the WB to hold meetings with various investors in the above sector with the aim to provide them with all possible facilitations. This is in addition to paying further attention to micro, small and medium enterprises (MEMEs) due to their role in providing youth with job opportunities and opening up new horizons for them, which would contribute to increasing economic growth rates and supporting more-wide reaching projects to ensure giving attention to lagging regions, investing in the agriculture sector and benefiting from competitive advantages and available investment opportunities nationwide.
The Minister commended the recent decision of the IFC, the WB's private sector lending arm, to inject new direct investments worth USD 150 million in Egypt's agriculture sector as investments for the public-private participation (PPP) aiming to develop the food sector using the most modern technology and providing youth with job opportunities.
