Egypt and Italy agree to swap $45 million in debt for food silos

Egypt and Italy have approved a project to swap $45 million of debt to establish silos and logistic locations to store grains, fruits and vegetables.

The agreement follows a meeting between Egyptian Supply Minister Khaled Hanafy, and the Italian ambassador to Egypt, Maurizio Massari, as reported by Al-Ahram Arabic news website.

The project aims at reducing the cost of transportation and waste in fruits and vegetables to ultimately provide them at lower prices to consumers.

Egypt's current silo storage capacity is 1.5 million tonnes but the United Arab Emirates pledged part of its LE34 billion ($4.9 billion) aid package to Egypt to build 25 new wheat silos, each with a capacity of 60,000 tonnes. This would bring the country's storage capacity to three million tonnes by mid-2014.