Egypt

The UAE has embarked on an overseas investment spree to ensure domestic food security in a country with miniscule arable area -- a spree that will only grow

Saudi Arabian investors are looking to expand their agricultural investments in the United States to secure long-term food supply because of water shortages in the desert kingdom, Saudi officials said on Thursday.

Egyptian private equity firm Citadel Capital is seeking to buy Kenya’s firms and long-term land leases as it seeks agro-based raw materials to feed its food business.

Interview with Wadid Erian of the Arab Centre for the Studies of Arid Zones and Dry Lands.

El-Nahda for Integrated Solutions signed an agreement with the White Nile Governorate for a 30-year lease on 60,000 feddans [25,210 ha] of land on which it will build a large-scale commercial rice farm.

Countries that have recently invited India, through the ministry of agriculture, to lease land for farming include Egypt, Ethiopia, Mongolia, Senegal, Sudan, Trinidad and Tobago and Tunisia.

The Kuwait-based firm aims to build on its base as the leading food company in the Middle East.

The fund is targeting individual investors and institutions as well as government-owned funds in the region, and will focus on the production of crops and livestock in Sudan and food processing in Egypt.

"We are launching the fund with the aim of deploying up to $1 billion for large-scale agricultural projects," Beltone told Reuters.

Minister says the contract did not give a deadline for the investor to complete his project, which means the government is powerless to withdraw the land from Saudi Prince Talal.

Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has received approval from Egypt's Ministry of Agriculture to sell 50 Pct of his agricultural firm, which is developing the Toshka agriculture project in southern Egypt, and to invite Asian investors to join the project.

Egypt will invite bids in March for 50,000 acres of land in North Sinai for agro-business projects under a new land scheme that could bring in as much as 66bn Egyptian pounds ($12bn) by 2020.