From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Mon Apr 06 2009 - 07:34:14 EDT
Saudi investors to put $100 mln into Ethiopia farm
Mon Apr 6, 2009 10:30am GMT
DAMMAM, Saudi Arabia, April 6 (Reuters) - A group of private Saudi investors
plans to invest 375 million riyals ($100 million) to plant wheat, barley and
rice in Ethiopia, one of the investors said.
The three investors met Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi late last
month, Mohamed al-Musallam, who chairs Dar Misc Economic and Administrative
Consultancy firm, told Reuters.
"They approved to lease us the farm land. They will exempt us from paying
taxes and lease fees in the first years of production and they will allow us
to export all our production," Musallam told Reuters.
Food security has topped the policy agenda in the Gulf Arab region following
rampant inflation in 2008 that underscored the peninsula's dependence on
imports and forced countries to invest abroad to ensure supplies of staples
like rice and wheat.
The three investors are setting up a company that will lead the investment.
"We have opted for rice, barley and wheat because they are among the crops
covered by the (Saudi) government's strategic food security programme," he
said.
"We plan to start within one year. We are in the process of assessing best
areas and ratios for each crop," Musallam added.
The other investors involved in the project are Yassine al-Jafri and Khaled
Zeiny.
"Some of the financing will come from us and ... we can secure some of the
financing from private financial institutions or from the Islamic
Development Bank," he added.
Saudi Arabia has urged companies to invest in farm projects abroad after
deciding last year to reduce wheat production by 12.5 percent per year,
abandoning a 30-year-old programme to grow its own, which achieved
self-sufficiency but depleted the desert kingdom's scarce water supplies.
State-owned Saudi Industrial Development Fund is granting financing
facilities to firms exploring agricultural investments abroad.
Saudi investors have launched agricultural projects in Indonesia worth $1.3
billion last year, Mohamed Abdulkader al-Fadel, who chairs Saudi Arabia's
Commerce and Industry Chambers Council, said earlier this month.
[ID:nLN550794]
The world's largest oil exporter said in January it had received the first
batch of rice to be produced abroad by local investors as part of the King
Abdullah Initiative for Saudi Agricultural Investment Abroad.
(Reporting by Souhail Karam, Editing by Thomas Atkins and Keiron Henderson)
C Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved
----[This List to be used for Eritrea Related News Only]----