At a time when corporate incursion continues
Emirati in EgyptThrough successive acquisitions of assets, properties, and public and government companies, Egyptians’ fears of an Emirati incursion into the vital agricultural sector, including commodity… Wheat The strategy, of which the most populous Arab country suffers from a severe deficiency.
The Emirati company Al Dahra, owned by Sheikh Hamdan bin Zayed Al Nahyan, which specializes in growing and producing fodder and supplying it to the Emirati control authority responsible for food security there, is negotiating with the Egyptian Armed Forces Engineering Authority to buy back lands in the Toshka project south of the Western Desert.
“Ownership is understatement and not serious.”
During the era of Hosni Mubarak, Al-Dhahra Company owned an area of 100,000 acres in Branch (3) of the Toshka project, for only 5 million pounds, at a price per acre of 50 Egyptian pounds, while its average price at the time was about 11,000 pounds, according to estimates from the lawsuit by the Egyptian Center for Social Rights. and Economic”, following the January 2011 revolution, while the State Council issued a fatwa on February 9, 2011, invalidating the contract.
but; Under the pretext of preserving Arab investments, the Agricultural Development Authority in Egypt decided in April 2011 not to terminate the contract with Al-Dhahra, but returned on September 26, 2012, and decided to withdraw 70,000 acres from Al-Dhahra and contented itself with allocating 30,000 acres. On Branch No. 2 in Toshka, similar to the settlement that the government concluded with Prince Alwaleed bin Talal in 2011.
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The prosecution’s investigations in this file regarding the pricing value were not completed, and the company only farmed a quarter of the area (only 25 thousand acres), so the Egyptian government actually withdrew 62.6 thousand acres due to lack of seriousness, and kept the company on 37.4 thousand acres, while “Al-Dhahra” is again trying to recover What was withdrawn from the lands.
“Company plans”
Sources told Reuters, in November 2023, that “Al-Dhahira Company is in talks to acquire 500,000 acres of agricultural land in Egypt,” which has the third-largest Arab economy and the second-largest African economy, and a vast market with a population exceeding 107 million people. .
Raouf Tawfiq announced in a press conference last Tuesday that Al-Dhahra intends to invest about 230 million dollars in Egypt within 5 years, 200 million of them in 90,000 acres, during 2025, through direct purchase or a long-term lease contract.
This potential area will join a portfolio of lands estimated at approximately 67 thousand acres that the company owns in 4 agricultural projects in Egypt, one in “Toshka,” two in “East Al-Uwaynat” (south of the Western Desert), and the last in “Al-Salhiya” (northeast of the Delta).
Last Wednesday, Tawfiq confirmed to the local economic publication “Enterprise” and to the “Al-Sharq with Bloomberg” website that the Emirati company is the largest producer of wheat from the private sector in Egypt, announcing a plan to reclaim two thousand acres of the company’s land portfolio in the next two years with investments of about 400 million pounds.
Al-Dhahra, which has been operating in Egypt since 2007, is headquartered in Abu Dhabi, and manages agricultural projects in Europe, the Americas and Africa, expected to achieve total revenues from its projects in Egypt worth $62 million by the end of this year, with the possibility of increasing it to $67 million next year.
He hinted that it has been making profits from its investments in Egypt since 2021, and that its investments amounted to about 250 million dollars, and that about 40,000 acres have been reclaimed in 4 projects, in Salhiya, Toshka, and East Al-Owainat.
“Supplying wheat to Egypt”
The company’s CEO said that Al-Dhahra’s production in 5 years amounted to about 450,000 tons of wheat, which Al-Dhahra supplied in full to the Ministry of Supply in Egyptian pounds at a value of 500 million dollars, at a rate of 100 million dollars annually, indicating the production of 210,000 tons of yellow corn. And 90 thousand tons of sugar beets were sold in the local market.
On July 22, 2023, Egypt signed a $100 million revolving loan facility agreement with the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development to finance its grain purchases from Al-Dhahra Company, amid experts’ questions about the supply price, given that it is imported wheat and is much higher than the price imposed by the government to supply wheat. From Egyptian farmers.
Cairo, the second largest importer of wheat in the world, bought ardeb (150 kilograms) from farmers at a price of 1,500 pounds in the 2023/2024 season, raising it to 2,200 pounds in 2024/2025.
Egypt, which was called the grain basket of the ancient world, consumes about 25 million tons of wheat annually, of which the Delta and Valley lands produce about 12 million tons, sufficient for the country for 6 months. It imports the rest from 16 origins, the most important of which are: Russia, Ukraine, Romania, Australia, and France. Lithuania, Canada, and China.
“External influences and fears”
Concerns are increasing as Russian farmers tend to grow smaller quantities of wheat next year, in favor of more profitable crops, after incurring heavy losses this year, according to a Reuters report last Wednesday, which may affect Egypt’s imports of Russian wheat. It increases Cairo’s need for the Emirati company’s wheat.
Observers expressed their fears about the growing role of the Emirati company in the agricultural sector, noting that it produces wheat, yellow corn, and beets on Egyptian soil, with cheap local labor, and with the water of the Nile River at no cost, at a time when the Egyptian economy suffers from serious structural crises and relies on external borrowing to provide Vital goods.
Some wondered about granting the Emirati company preferential benefits that are not granted to young people who demand that they own small spaces, especially since their percentage between the ages of 18 and 29 exceeds 21.1 million people, according to an official census last August.
Some pointed out that in exchange for granting the Emirati company thousands of acres, millions of Egyptian youth are deprived of ownership in projects in which the army is reclamation, and that the Egyptian government is even carrying out massive displacement operations against people in strategic and vital areas and handing them over to Emirati companies and others that are its partners.
Last Tuesday evening, Warraq Island, in the middle of the Cairo Nile, witnessed violent clashes between residents who refused to leave their lands to implement an Emirati tourism project, and security forces who arrested dozens of them.
On November 4, army forces clashed with the residents of the village of Jemima in Marsa Matrouh Governorate and fired live bullets at those who refused to be displaced to establish the “South Mid Egypt” tourism project under the supervision of the Armed Forces Engineering Authority and the Talaat Mustafa Holding Group, with Emirati partnership.
“National security crime”
In his reading for “Arabi 21”, the Egyptian agricultural expert, Dr. Abdel Tawab Barakat, spoke about the implications of the Emirati company’s incursion into the field of… Agriculture The Egyptian government and the production of strategic commodities such as wheat and corn, considering it “a crime that affects the food security of Egyptians.”
He said: “When foreign investments turn from a source of financing, increasing youth job opportunities, transferring technology, increasing the national product, and sharing revenues to profiteering, wasting public money, blackmailing the state, and financial corruption at the expense of the local producer, which is the Egyptian farmer in this case, it is a crime.” “The right to national security requires accountability and accountability.”
The advisor to the former Egyptian Minister of Supply added: “This is because General Sisi stated that growing wheat is not an economic priority for his regime, and that growing other crops with a higher return and then buying wheat from abroad is his agricultural policy.”
He stressed that “the reality proves that it deprives the Egyptian farmer of possession of agricultural land in the desert backbone, expropriates it from its owners under false pretexts, gifts it to foreign companies affiliated with the governments that support his regime, and owns it to those foreign companies at the expense of Egyptian national security.”
The academic specializing in agricultural development research and food security policies pointed out that, “Instead of supporting Egyptian wheat farms as a strategic security, as well as yellow corn and soybeans, he buys these strategic crops from the Egyptian farmer at low prices that cause him financial losses, so he is forced to grow other marginal and non-profitable crops.” “Feasible.”
He believes that it is “an established policy to impoverish the Egyptian farmer since 2014,” stressing that “wasting food security is one of the most important components of national security, and has led to an increase in the food gap in Egypt with food prices rising to the highest rate in the world, and an increase in poverty and the social problems associated with it, such as unemployment, divorce, and disintegration.” Prisoners and crimes of stealing from neighbors and relatives and threatening the social fabric of the Egyptian nation.”
He concluded by saying: “These are crimes that will be recorded in the history of this regime.”
Seize opportunities
For his part, the economic and strategic expert, Dr. Alaa Al-Sayed, said, “The intention of the Emirati phenomenon affiliated with the Abu Dhabi Sovereign Fund to expand by purchasing agricultural land in Egypt and growing wheat and selling it to it as an imported commodity is not the root of the problem, and the desire to expand is natural for any company.”
The President of the International Banking Academy confirmed in his interview with Arabi 21 that “the biggest problem was poor strategic planning from the beginning since 2013,” indicating that “there is no pure national strategy to save the Egyptian economy, and despite successive governments, they did not develop plans.” “A clear strategy for rescue, and there was no single national vision.”
He pointed out, “The scene says that the main goal is to drown Egypt in debt, perhaps intentionally or perhaps randomly, although I tend to believe that the matter is planned and is being implemented very precisely.”
A consultant for the development and financing of investment projects and endowments, he believes that “Egypt’s drowning in debt and its inability to repay led it to give up its assets little by little, such as giving up Egypt’s historical share of the Nile waters in the 2015 agreement, and the Eastern Mediterranean gas fields in maritime border demarcation agreements with the Zionist entity, Cyprus, and Greece.” Scheming in Türkiye under certain circumstances.”
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He added: “It was easy for successive governments to give up Egyptian assets in a remarkable way, including the islands of Tiran and Sanafir to Saudi Arabia in 2016, and the subsequent abandonment of the strategic Egyptian Tiran corridor, which turned into an international corridor allowing the construction of the Ben Gurion Canal, a competitor to the Suez Canal.”
He continued: “Then hundreds of billions of dollars flowed into Egypt in a very surprising way, and this was not an appropriate price to bring about change in the Egyptian political scene. Only a few billion were sufficient, and it was not necessary for all those billions to flow without passing through the Central Bank.”
Al-Sayyed believes, “This is a deliberate issue, and in the end whoever sent that money then demanded his rights, and asked: What did you do with this money? And they said: We want compensation for it, so the squandering began again, and even continuing to squander assets and lands, as we saw in the header Wisdom in Al-Alamein, northwest of the country, and others.”
He insisted, “In addition to neglecting thousands of agricultural acres, there was neglect in the fertilizer sector related to the agricultural sector, and the loss of the most important companies working in this field as a price for the billions that flowed after 2013, and these are not new investments, but rather Egyptian national investments that were waived.”
The Egyptian expert expressed his greatest fear, explaining that “the matter has now reached the difficulty of planning for the future, not only in the field of agriculture and wheat, but in all sectors. If a rational government comes and decides to develop a plan to restructure and develop the economy, it will not be able to implement this in light of the presence of the Emirati and Saudi expansion within the economy.” Al-Masry and before it the economic arm of the army.”
He went on to stress that “there is no longer room for the nation, the people, or any government to work between the anvil of the economic arm of the army, or the economic arm of the Abu Dhabi sovereign fund, the money of Dubai, and the Saudi sovereign fund.”
He concluded his speech: “The economic situation in Egypt has been deliberately complicated, and the people and even the governments that want to plan and develop can no longer do anything. There are major players in the Egyptian and economic scene who are preventing a purely national decision in the interest of the Egyptian.”
He concluded by saying: “So the matter is not limited only to the issue of agricultural lands, wheat, corn, and strategic crops. I see that the story is bigger, which is seizing opportunities and clearing old bills.”
