Egyptian sugar firm signs $50m Saudi financing deal

CAIRO: Canal Sugar has signed an export financing agreement with the Saudi Fund for Development (SFD), with a total value
of $50 million.
Abdulmohsen Al-Khayal, the managing director of the Saudi Export Program of the SFD, said that the fund’s financing of the Canal Sugar project is part of its wider role to help increase trade between the two countries by providing credit facilities to companies who wish to import Saudi goods into Egypt.
Islam Salem, CEO of Canal Sugar, said that the agreement would push forward the completion of financing for the project, which initially amounted to $1 billion, 30 percent of which is financed from the shareholders and 70 percent from local and international banking institutions.
The SFD was established in 1975 to finance projects in developing countries, to provide grants for technical aid to finance studies and institutional support, and to provide financing and guarantees for national non-oil exports.
Canal Sugar was established with the participation of the Emirati Jamal Al Ghurair Group of companies, Al Ahly Capital Holding Company, the investment arm of the National Bank of Egypt, and the Emirati company Murban Energy, to implement the largest factory for the production of white sugar from sugar beet in the world.
In an area of 240 feddans and with a production of up to 950,000 tons of high-quality white
sugar, the facility will make
sugar the first self-sufficient commodity in Egypt.