News in brief

By Compiled by DailyNewEgypt
First Published: January 28, 2010

Egypt to offer licenses for 8 cement plants

Egypt will offer licenses in the first half of this year to build eight cement factories with capacity of 1.5 million tons each, Trade Minister Rachid Mohamed Rachid said on Wednesday.

Rachid told Reuters he hoped the new plants would start production in 2014 or 2015, to help meet growing domestic consumption which rose 16 percent last year.

"This created the need for more capacity in the next few years for that," he said in an interview on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in the Swiss ski resort of Davos.

"...We are going to offer about eight new licenses, each one (for) a million and a half million tons of cement. That should happen within the first half of this year."

Earlier this month Rachid told the Al-Alam Al-Youm newspaper Egypt was planning to 12 licenses to build cement factories in 2010 to meet growing local demand.

Industrial Development Authority chairman Amr Assal said at the time the energy supply needed to run the plants required approval before the 12 licenses could ban be offered.

Rachid said on Wednesday domestic consumption in Egypt had grown to almost 60 million tons, "and we are anticipating growth of around 10 percent."

Egypt's construction industry has continued to grow in the wake of the global economic crisis, even as it stalled elsewhere in the region. –Reuters

Saudi Spimaco says bidding for Egyptian drug firm

Saudi Pharmaceutical Industries and Medical Appliances Co (Spimaco) said on Wednesday it had made a bid to buy into an unidentified Egyptian peer, which would open a market three times bigger than its home turf.

Spimaco made a "cash bid" to shareholders in the company to buy all or a part of its shares once it completes various audits of the targeted company, it said in a statement posted on the Saudi bourse's website. It did not elaborate.

According to its website, Spimaco has a representation office in Egypt, whose 78 million population is three times that of Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi firm made a net profit of 154.8 million Saudi riyals on ($41.28 million) sales of 950.7 million riyals in 2009. Its assets stood at 2.72 billion riyals in 2009. –Reuters

Egypt to export at least 600,000 T rice-minister

Egypt expects to export 600,000 to 800,000 tons of rice this year, Trade Minister Rachid Mohamed Rachid said on Wednesday.

That would mark a doubling of last year's exports, he said, but still well short of levels before Egypt curbed sales in response to water shortages and a food crisis in 2008.

"We have resumed exports again," Rachid told Reuters. "We are probably going to have anything between 600,000 to 800,000 tons of exports of rice this year, depending on the crop."

"We are definitely seeing no less than 600,000 tons," he said on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Rachid said in September that Egypt had the capacity to export one million tons of rice a year but that it wanted to limit these exports to save water.

Egypt has a water supply of about 860 cubic meters per person a year, below the water poverty line of 1,000 cubic meters per person a year, with agriculture consuming more than 80 percent of that supply. –Reuters

Egypt to liberalize nitrogen fertilizers market

Egypt is looking to liberalize the nitrogen fertilizers market next march, according to press reports.

The government has ordered this month Abu Kier Fertilizers to renew its supply contracts with the Principal Bank for Development & Agricultural Credit for only two months instead of a whole year.

Egypt’s production of nitrogen fertilizers is expected to reach 16.1 million tons in fiscal year 2009/10.

Local factories contribute to 51.1 percent of total production and the remainder comes from free zones. –Al-Masry -Youm