Emirates announces $10 billion investment in Egypt and Jordan
Abu Dhabi's Abu Dhabi Holding (ADQ) will set up a fund worth $10 billion for investments in Egypt and Jordan as part of an "economic partnership" between the three countries, the UAE's Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology, Sultan bin Ahmed al Jaber, announced on Sunday.
ADQ, the Abu Dhabi government's overseas investment arm, which manages $110 billion worth of assets, "will allocate an investment fund of $10 billion to invest in projects arising from this partnership in the agreed sectors," Al Jaber said, according to the official Emirati news agency, WAM.
Al Jaber made the announcement following the signing in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) capital of an agreement on "Intergration Industrial Partnership for Sustainable Economic Development", along with the prime ministers of Egypt and Jordan, Mustafa Madbouli and Bishr al Jasawneh, respectively.
The Emirati minister hoped that "this partnership will enable economic opportunities of billions of dollars in added economic value, as well as the development of joint industrial projects in the future".
He explained that among other sectors, investments will focus on "priority areas such as pharmaceuticals, agriculture, food, petrochemicals, minerals and textiles".
The partnership comes at a time when Egypt and Jordan's economies are going through difficult times due to the war in Ukraine and international inflation, which has directly affected their currencies and imports, most notably of Ukrainian wheat.
"We have the opportunity to increase wheat and maize production in the three countries from 16.5 million tonnes per year to 30 million tonnes," Al Jaber added, according to WAM.
He also stressed that in other sectors, such as "in the petrochemical industry, we have possibilities to develop it and raise its share in the GDP of the three countries to 21 billion, instead of $16 billion in 2019."
The Egyptian prime minister considered that "this country is an example of how to act in these economic and geopolitical circumstances that the world is going through" due to Russia's war in Ukraine, which forced Egypt to design urgent plans to increase its openness to foreign and private sector investments.
Madbouli said in mid-May that Egypt aims to increase the private sector's share of investment from 30 to 65 per cent, and expressed hope of reaching an agreement "within a month" with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to ease pressure on the Egyptian economy.