President El-Sisi Meets with PM and Some Ministers and Officials

President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi met today with Prime Minister Dr. Mostafa Madbouly, Minister of Agriculture and Land Reclamation Al-Sayed El-Quseir, Minister of State for Military Production Major General Mohamed Morsi, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Land Reclamation Engineer Mustafa Al-Sayyad and Director of the National Service Projects Organization (NSPO) Major General Mostafa Amin attended the meeting. Head of the Armed Forces Engineering Authority Staff Major General Ehab Al-Far and President of the Agricultural Research Center Dr. Mohamed Soliman also attended the meeting.

The Spokesman for the Egyptian Presidency stated that the meeting discussed the developments of a number of national projects for the Ministry of Agriculture and the Sinai Development Project. President El-Sisi emphasized on expanding those projects due to their nutritional, health and economic returns on state and citizens. The President gave directives for increasing the financial allocations for the National Veal Project by one billion pounds.

The President was updated on the results of the experience of rationalizing the use of water for agriculture via removing salts from irrigation water used for agriculture, with the aim of maximizing the utilization of available water resources. The President further highlighted the importance of using all components of desalination technology in Egypt in order to strengthen the national capacity in this field while conducting more studies and experiments to come up with the best results, in parallel with other countries’ plans in rationalizing water consumption and using modern irrigation methods.

The President also emphasized on supporting the national project for the establishment and development of dairy collection centers nationwide, with the aim of speeding up the creation of that system with the largest possible number of collection centers and bringing expertise in this field. Hence, an integrated system that maximizes qualitative and quantitative milk production and encourages establishing relevant food industries was introduced.

President El-Sisi also gave directives for supporting the National Veal Project and doubling the project’s fund to reach EGP 1 billion since it achieved a balance in the local meat market.

The Spokesman stated that, during the meeting, they presented studies on the expansion of localization and importation of livestock strains with high productivity of meat and dairy products. These efforts aim to replace and improve the breeds in Egypt, which contributes to reducing the import gap of meat and increasing dairy production, thus positively affecting small breeders and farmers’ incomes.

The national program developed for the production of vegetables seeds was also reviewed. The program aims to reduce the rate of import and thereby reduce the cost of production in this regard.

The Spokesman added that the Prime Minister presented the implementation status of North and Central Sinai Development Project. The expected financial cost was also tackled. Irrigation water routes in the targeted expansion areas were also presented. Moreover, means to benefit from the treated available agricultural wastewater were discussed. This wastewater is expected to be provided from the agricultural wastewater treatment plant from Bahr Al-Baqar drain. In this context, President El-Sisi emphasized on accelerating progress of this strategic project which has direct positive impacts on Sinai development.