Arab Finance: The Ministries of Industry, Agriculture and Land Reclamation and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) signed Egyptian cotton project document (The second phase), which aims to enhance the environmental, economic and social sustainability of the Egyptian cotton value chain through strong partnerships with the main national institutions, sectoral associations, and stakeholders in the local and international private sector. The document was signed by Lieutenant General Engineer Kamel Al-Wazir, Deputy Prime Minister for Industrial Development and Minister Industry and Transport, Alaa Farouk, Minister of Agriculture and Land Reclamation, and Patrick Jean Gilabert, Regional Representative of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) in Egypt.
At the beginning of his speech after the signing ceremony, the Deputy Prime Minister for Industrial Development and the Minister of Industry and Transport expressed his happiness at signing the document for the Egyptian Cotton Project (the second phase), which is being implemented by UNIDO for the benefit of the Ministries of Industry, Agriculture and Land Reclamation, which will ultimately benefit all of Egypt, as it was designed The project is to support the Egyptian cotton sector from farm to factory and provide qualified expertise to maintain its competitiveness in a rapidly changing market by training small cotton farmers on practical, sustainable, scalable practices and plans, innovation, green technology, circular economy approaches, and human capital development to meet the requirements of international markets, in addition to Promoting youth employment at various stages of the Egyptian cotton textile value chain by providing skilled human resources.
The Deputy Prime Minister for Industrial Development and Minister of Industry and Transport confirmed that Egyptian cotton plays a major role in economic and social development, as the textile sector achieves vertical integration, starting from raw materials and ending with ready-made clothes, indicating that the signing of the second phase of the project comes as a continuation of the success it has achieved. The first phase, which extended from 2018 until 2021, was implemented within the framework of the Egyptian government’s strategy to develop the textile sector in cooperation with the Ministry of Trade and Industry and the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation, pointing out that the project was supported and funded by the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation in addition to benefiting from the “Cotton” initiative. for Life”, affiliated with the Italian Filma Group and the International Islamic Trade Finance Corporation, where the aim of the project was to enhance sustainability and inclusiveness and enhance the added value of the value chain of Egyptian long-staple and extra-long staple cotton, by improving the economic, social and environmental performance of farmers and cotton processors, and strengthening supporting institutions.
The Minister pointed out that on the production level, cooperation took place between the project and the Cotton Research Institute to enhance cotton production in the governorates of Kafr El-Sheikh and Damietta, where capacity-building programs focused on traditional and organic production methods, and the potential economic savings were reviewed by reducing the use of water, pesticides, and fertilizers while reducing Environmental impact.
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