• IFC plans a $40 million loan to Nile Sugar, owned by Naguib Sawiris’s group.

• Funds will support 5,760 hectares of sugar beet farming in Upper Egypt.

• The project aims to reduce Egypt’s reliance on sugar imports.

Egypt is seeking to reduce its reliance on sugar imports, and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the World Bank’s private-sector arm, plans to support that effort.

According to documents reviewed by Ecofin Agency, the institution is considering a $40 million senior loan to Nile Sugar Company (S.A.E.), a private sugar beet producer founded in 2006 by the Sawiris family. The proposal, which has circulated internally for several months, is currently awaiting approval.

A seven-year financing structure

The proposed financing would be split into two equal tranches: $20 million provided directly by the IFC and another $20 million mobilized from third-party investors. The loan would have a seven-year maturity, including a three-year grace period.

Nile Sugar was acquired in 2019 by Orascom Investment Holding, the investment vehicle of billionaire Naguib Sawiris, in a transaction valued at 3.7 billion Egyptian pounds (about $71.8 million). The deal strengthened the group’s position in Egypt’s strategic agribusiness sector.

The funding will help develop 13,711 feddans (about 5,760 hectares) of farmland in Minya, Upper Egypt, for sugar beet cultivation.

The project also includes investments in infrastructure, equipment, and working capital, including financing for seeds and agricultural inputs supplied to the company’s network of smallholder farmers.

Part of Egypt’s desert land expansion strategy

The initiative is part of Egypt’s large-scale agricultural expansion program overseen by the Egyptian Countryside Development Company, a joint structure bringing together the ministries of Finance, Agriculture, and Housing.

The program aims to develop four million feddans (about 1.68 million hectares) of desert land by 2030, with the goal of boosting agricultural production, attracting domestic and foreign investment, and promoting sustainable development.

Nile Sugar’s refinery, located in Nubariyah along the Alexandria–Cairo desert road, currently processes up to 11,000 tons of sugar beet per day and produces around 232,000 tons of white sugar per season.

Although the plant is located about 350 kilometers from the new farming areas in Minya, the IFC considers it directly linked to the project because it relies almost entirely on supply from the farms being developed.

Closing Egypt’s sugar gap

Egypt’s sugar production reached 2.8 million tons in 2025, with authorities targeting 2.9 million tons in 2026, equivalent to a self-sufficiency rate of around 81%. The figure marks a slight improvement after falling to 75.8% in 2024.

Still, the country consumes about 3.2 million tons of sugar each year, leaving a structural supply gap that authorities are trying to close through new agricultural land development and expanded private-sector production.

Sugar imports are expected to fall to 1.5 million tons in the 2024–2025 season, down from 1.8 million tons the previous campaign, reflecting a gradual shift toward import substitution that the IFC-backed investment seeks to accelerate.

Fiacre E. Kakpo