CAIRO: President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi called for finalizing the reclamation of 100,000 acres in Sudan within one year to meet the production needs of the Egyptian and Sudanese people, according to a presidential statement Sunday.
During a meeting with a Sudanese high-level delegation Sunday, “Sisi emphasized the need to pay more attention to conduct more agricultural researches and improve crops specifications in order to achieve abundance of fodder production needed for livestock development,” presidential spokesperson Alaa Youssef said in the statement.
The meeting also tackled ways to relaunch the Sudanese-Egyptian Agricultural Integration Company (SEAIC.) Since 2007, the SEAIC General Assembly members have not met; however, both sides resumed the company meetings in the past two days.
In a Sunday press conference, the two countries signed an agreement to extend the company’s contract for 30 more years to yield the benefit of the 100,000 acres.
The meeting was attended by Sudanese Minister of Agriculture and Forests Ibrahim al-Dikhairi, governor of the Blue Nile state Hussein Abu Sirwal, Egyptian Minister of Irrigation and Water Resources Houssam Moughazy and Egypt’s Minister of Agriculture Salah al-Din Helal.
Blue Nile State’s Ad-Damazin-based SEAIC was established in 1976 when late President Anwar Sadat and his Sudanese counterpart Gaafar Nimeiry signed an integration agreement between both sides.
At the time of its establishment, the company had owned more than 250,000 acres for reclamation; however, the lands shrunk to 90,000 acres due to the 2011 separation of South Sudan from the North.