The Agricultural Bank of Egypt (ABE) will form a working group to cooperate with Kafr El-Sheikh governorate in establishing youth projects through offering soft loans, according to ABE Chairperson Alaa Farouk.
Farouk confirmed, during his meeting with Kafr El-Sheikh Governor Gamal Nour El-Din, on Saturday, that the ABE will continue with its primary goal to support farmers.
He added that it will also provide all means of support through all the financing programmes it provides, whether in the agricultural sector or the livestock, poultry and fish sectors, and supporting small farmers.
Farouk said that the ABE is currently implementing a comprehensive development strategy at all levels. The development plan also enjoys great support from the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) under the leadership of its Governor Tarek Amer.
The ABE Chairperson also said that the development includes the implementation of development projects in the technology and banking systems sectors, as well as the development of the bank’s infrastructure and its branches. This comes in addition to the development and training of its human resources element.
Farouk added that the next stage will witness a complete restructuring of the Egyptian Agricultural Development Company (EAD), which falls under the bank’s jurisdiction.
He noted that all these steps aim to help the ABE restore its pioneering role in development, and to ensure its status as a bank for all Egyptians. It currently provides banking services to more than 55 million rural residents and workers in the agricultural and associated activities.
For his part, Nour El-Din said that projects will be set up for youth, breadwinners, and divorced women in a number of villages in the governorate, in cooperation with the ABE. This includes the establishment of a biogas project, a fish farming project, as well as poultry production and the marketing of eggs, by providing batteries each containing 620 chicks.
Factories will be set up for wood and fuel tablets, along with the exploitation of fish wealth by setting up factories for the manufacture and canning of fish. This will come in addition to establishing fish farms using technological means.
Farouk said that he has been in contact with Minister of Agriculture ElSayed ElKosayer to provide lands for the establishment of these projects.
He said that the implementation of establishing multiple projects in the villages will begin, with villages to be selected to establish fish farming projects using modern methods. These are projected to exploit fewer areas and give greater productivity, in addition to a poultry production project and the establishment of biogas projects.
Farouk praised the experience witnessed by the villages of Hamoul, which is seeing 1,000 new projects that provided gas and electricity.
