The announcement was made during the opening ceremony of the second stage of the Silo Foods Industries city in Sadat City in Menoufiya governorate, which was attended by President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi on Thursday.
Silo Foods, an affiliate of the National Service Projects Organisation (NSPO) of the Armed Forces, is the first food industries city in the Middle East.
The first stage of Silo Foods was inaugurated by President El-Sisi in August 2021 with a goal of providing school meals for 13 million students nationwide.
The second stage, which aims to develop the school nutrition system, includes establishing a factory for dairy, biscuits, halva, and tahina products in addition to a printing complex and a central lab to secure people's needs in the local market and export products abroad to secure hard currency.
The event was attended by Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly, Minister of Defence Mohamed Zaki, and a number of ministers and top officials.
Speaking during the event, El-Sisi asserted that the NSPO abides by fair competition rules with its companies paying all state dues, including water and electricity bills as well as taxes.
On Wednesday, PM Madbouly announced listing two NSPO firms - the water company Safy and petrol stations operator Wataniya – among dozens of state-owned companies offered on the bourse.
In a press conference, PM Madbouly said 32 Egyptian state companies will be listed on the EGX or sold to strategic investors within a year in accordance with the aims of the recently-adopted State Ownership Policy Document that targets the creation of a larger role for the private sector in the economy.
The government intends to list 25 percent of the asset-value of these 32 companies in the bourse within six months, according to the prime minister.
The president stressed in his comments today that the government is ready to list more companies on the bourse or engage in partnership with the private sector.
He also called for increasing production and the number of students who benefit from the school nutrition project.
President El-Sisi praised Silo Foods for increasing the number of students benefiting from school meals from 13.5 million to 15 million students. He also praised the company for increasing the number of schools receiving school meals from 31,000 schools to 33,000 schools.
Meeting local market needs - plus exports
Meanwhile, General Walid Abul-Magd, Director of the NSPO, said in remarks during the opening ceremony that all the companies affiliated with the organisation are subjected to the censorship of the Central Auditing Organisation.
Abul-Magd said that the organisation pays all its dues to the concerned bodies for the services it gets, noting that it paid EGP 6 billion for electricity, EGP 3 billion for gas and EGP 4.5 billion in taxes.
He explained that the organisation aims through its various projects to secure part of the needs of the local market in order to reduce burdens on the state.
Following the opening event, El-Sisi toured the units of the second stage of Silo Foods City.
The president listened to a detailed presentation on the halva and sesame paste factory, which includes five production lines with a production capacity of 50 tons daily.
He stressed the importance of increasing the number of students benefiting from the school nutrition project and of boosting production to that end.
The second stage includes a cardboard factory with a production capacity of 100 tons daily. It also includes an ink recycling solvent station and a central laboratory that encompasses a chemical and microbiology laboratory.
Silo Foods city includes nine factories that use the latest technology and high-tech industrial facilities, 14-grain silos and a comprehensive printing complex for packaging environmentally friendly products.
Silo Foods products are exported to 13 countries in Europe, Africa and Asia at an export capacity of 11,000 tons.
Abul-Magd explained that the firm is established with a production capacity of 750,000 tons of basic commodities a year.
The factories of the second phase contribute to producing 200,000 tons of dairy products, 16,000 tons of halva, and 7,800 tons of dunking and moulding biscuits annually.
The second phase also includes a recycling station with an annual production capacity of 1,300 tons to counter the negative impacts of climate change
At the end of the tour, the president visited an exhibition hall that houses all the company's products, including bakery, snacks and dairy products.
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