Egypt starts building seven massive warehouses for strategic commodities

According to a Cabinet statement on Sunday, the new warehouse is part of the first phase of a plan to build seven strategic warehouses that will store more than 30 basic commodities, including wheat, rice and meat, in various geographic areas of the country.

The first phase includes building warehouses in Suez, Fayoum in Upper Egypt, and Sharqiya in the Nile Delta, in addition to Luxor in the deep south of the country.

Construction on the Luxor depot will be completed within 18-24 months, according to the statement.

The warehouses will also be used by the Egyptian Mercantile Exchange to store commodities.

The government seeks to build up reserves of a group of basic food commodities to hedge against fluctuations in global supply amid geopolitical instabilities.

Last week, Minister Moselhi said the country's strategic commodities reserves are sufficient to meet consumption needs for several months.