A Russian consortium comprising three major firms has officially submitted a proposal to construct new wheat silos in Egyptian ports. Mamdouh Abdel-Fattah, deputy chair of the General Authority for Supply Commodities (GASC), recently met with representatives from the consortium to discuss the bid.
The Russian consortium has offered to build silos with a total capacity of 250,000 tons, Abdel-Fattah said, noting that the ports designated for these installations will be announced in the near future. He added that the GASC has requested a comprehensive proposal from the Russian companies in order to thoroughly evaluate the terms and select the optimal offer.
The Russian proposal has revived a long-standing debate regarding the establishment of an international logistics hub in Egypt to re-export Russian wheat. However, Nader Noureddin, a former advisor to the Ministry of Supply and GASC, dismissed the necessity of such a hub for Black Sea grain.
Russia does not need a logistics hub to distribute wheat in the Middle East due to its geographical proximity, Noureddin said. Contracted shipments of wheat from Russia and Ukraine reach the region within eight to ten days. If logistics hubs are required, they should instead be considered by long-distance exporters like the United States, Canada, and Argentina, whose shipments take around 28 days to arrive.
Noureddin said that since the GASC has requested formal bids for port-based installations, the projects will remain under state sovereignty. “Because these silos will be built inside Egyptian ports rather than in free zones, they will fall under Egyptian management and sovereignty, with the Russian companies providing the finance,” he explained.
He noted that Cairo historically secures soft loans, at around one per cent interest, or grants from major suppliers to fund silo infrastructure. Alternatively, a portion of the construction costs is deducted from Egypt’s future grain imports over a predetermined timeline, a decades‑old mechanism previously applied to French shipments.
The new proposals come amid a major domestic push under Egypt’s National Silo Project. The first phase of the initiative saw the construction of 50 modern silos in 17 governorates at an investment cost of LE2.5 billion.
This phase successfully propelled Egypt’s national storage capacity beyond 3.5 million tons, a massive leap from the 1.2 million tons seen prior to the launch of the project. Key installations include the Ataka and Nubariya silos, which hold 60,000 tons each, alongside the Wadi Al-Natroun and Abu Homos silos at 30,000 tons.
International development financing is further accelerating the transition. The European Investment Bank has approved a 90-million-euro concessional loan for the Egypt food resilience project to upgrade grain storage and logistics for the GASC.
The European Union is contributing 100 million euros to the project, while the World Bank is providing a 110-million-euro soft loan.
At the same time, the Future of Egypt agricultural project has announced plans to build 300 new silos within the New Delta megaproject to yield an aggregate storage capacity of two million tons.
Developed in partnership with leading Chinese specialists, the first phase, comprising 100 silos with a capacity of 500,000 tons, has already been completed.
Despite these gains, Egypt requires an additional two million tons of storage capacity for various grains to match its current agricultural expansion, according to Abdel-Ghaffar Al-Salamoni, a board member of the Chamber of Grain Industries at the Federation of Egyptian Industries.
Al-Salamoni said that horizontal and vertical expansion projects in the New Delta, East Oweinat, Toshka, and West Minya projects demand a continuous parallel upgrade in storage infrastructure.
To localise supply chains, the Future of Egypt project has signed agreements with the Chinese firm Famsun Integrated Solutions to establish a manufacturing plant in Ain Al-Sokhna. The facility aims to cover 50 per cent of local and Middle Eastern market demands for silo components while having an 80 per cent local component ratio.
The Ministry of Supply is also preparing a tender for the construction of 100 silos under a financial leasing model. Private investors will finance and build the infrastructure, leasing the silos to the GASC for a period of five to ten years, after which ownership will automatically transfer to the state.
Hussein Abdel-Hady, head of the Farmers Syndicate, emphasised that expanding modern storage capacities is critical not only to hedge against global geopolitical conflicts and climate change but also to accommodate surging domestic production.
Prime Minister Mustafa Madbouli recently announced that Egypt has procured a record 4.65 million tons of locally produced wheat during the current harvest season, putting the country on track to reach its five million ton target, up from four million last season.
The achievement follows reforms in the procurement system, including two successive increases in the purchase price paid to farmers as well as the introduction of a new mechanism ensuring payments within 48 hours of delivery.
This gives the government the logistical capacity to push its strategic wheat reserves beyond the six-month safety limit, Abdel-Hady concluded. Modern storage silos reduce wheat losses compared to traditional earthen ones, where spoilage can reach up to 15 per cent of stocks, while also streamlining daily operations of storage, supply, and distribution.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 18 June, 2026 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly.
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