CAIRO: Egypt is to sign an agreement with Italy in the coming few days to establish 10 horizontal wheat silos, with the capacity of 500,000 tons yearly, with investments of $17 million, Youm7 reported Thursday.
“The silos project is to be implemented over a period of two years, as a first phase of the $45-million debt swap program signed between Egypt and Italy,” Ministry of Supply Khaled Hefny announced Wednesday.
Egypt’s minister of international cooperation Naglaa el-Ahwany and Italy’s Ambassador to Egypt Maurizio Massari will attend the signing ceremony.
The announcement came after the minister’s meeting Wednesday with the director of the Development Cooperation Office in the Italian in Cairo Marco Platzer and the former cooperation attaché at the Italian embassy of Italy in Cairo Guido Benevento and a number of Egyptian officials.
Hefny added that both parties have agreed on implementing the second phase by establishing two logistics zones for storage of grains, vegetables and fruits, at a value of $28 million, which is the remaining sum of the swap program.
“The feasibility studies of the two zones to be established at Safaga city in Red Sea and at Kom Abu Radi industrial zone in Beni Suef governorate have been finished,” the minister noted.
He pointed that the zones’ project will ensure the availability of grains, vegetables and fruits in Upper Egypt all year long with reduced prices.