The House of Representatives gave final approval on Tuesday to a government-backed law that restructures the Future of Egypt Agency for Sustainable Development, granting it greater administrative, financial, and technical independence.
The new legislation creates a clearer legal framework as the agency becomes an independent body responsible for major projects in agriculture, food security, logistics, renewable energy, and investment.
Under the new law, the agency will function as a specialized state entity with its own legal powers.
This will give it more flexibility to manage large-scale development initiatives, attract local and foreign investment, and encourage greater private sector involvement.
Bahaa El Ghannam, Executive Director of the Future of Egypt Agency, said in recent press statements that the law reorganizes the agency’s governance and places it formally under presidential oversight.
He stressed that the body is designed to act as an incubator and facilitator for private investment, rather than a direct investor itself.
During parliamentary discussions, MP Reda Abdel Salam noted that lawmakers had amended nearly 80 per cent of the contested provisions to improve transparency, oversight, and fair competition.
The bill now awaits ratification by President Abdel Fattah El Sisi before taking effect.
The move comes as Egypt intensifies efforts to increase agricultural production, stabilize food markets, and ensure the availability of essential goods at reasonable prices.
It forms part of a broader strategy outlined by President Sisi on July 4 during the opening of the Strategic Command Headquarters in the New Administrative Capital.
The president instructed the authority to work with the ministries of agriculture and supply on a national programme aimed at easing the cost of living.
This includes expanding permanent retail outlets and strengthening supply chains to help stabilize the prices of basic commodities.
The agency is now positioned at the heart of a comprehensive state approach that connects agricultural production, irrigation, storage, logistics, food industries, retail distribution, renewable energy, technical education, research, and efforts to control consumer prices.
The Future of Egypt Agency oversees some of the country’s most ambitious strategic projects in agriculture and food security, playing a central role in boosting domestic production and reducing dependence on imports.
Its flagship effort includes the reclamation of 4.5 million feddans of land by 2027, one of the largest agricultural expansion programmes in Egypt’s history.
The initiative aims to expand cultivated areas, strengthen food security, and increase local output.
The agency also runs the New Delta grain silo complex, the largest of its kind in the Middle East, with a storage capacity of 500,000 tonnes.
The facility is expected to improve Egypt’s strategic reserves, enhance storage efficiency, and cut post-harvest losses.
In addition, it manages around 1,500 retail outlets that sell essential food items at affordable prices.
Its livestock projects target an annual production of about 180,000 head to support meat and dairy supplies and food processing industries.
The Sphinx Agricultural Commodities Trading Centre, affiliated with the agency, has a handling and storage capacity of up to 20 million tonnes.
In the energy sector, the agency is advancing renewable energy projects with a total capacity of 2,320 megawatts to power development efforts and support Egypt’s shift towards cleaner sources.
It also partners with the Ministry of Education and Italy’s ITSAgro Academy to establish 26 Egyptian-Italian agricultural technology schools to train skilled workers for the sector.
Economists say the agency’s expanded role could gradually help stabilize food markets by increasing supply, reducing seasonal shortages, and easing price swings.
“Expanding direct sales outlets and reducing the number of middlemen between producers and consumers can help lower the prices of essential goods and support the government’s efforts to ease the cost-of-living burden,” said Sherine Shawarby, Professor of Economics at Cairo University, in an interview with The Egyptian Gazette.
She cautioned, however, that any real impact on prices would take time. Success, she added, would depend on timely project implementation, higher productivity, better logistics, and continued government oversight.
“The law sends a positive signal to both local and foreign investors by creating an economic body capable of forming long-term partnerships in land reclamation, agricultural production, food processing, and logistics,” leading economist Sahar al-Damaty told this newspaper.
She noted that the restructure of the agency could draw new capital into agriculture, a sector that has gained critical importance amid global food security challenges.
“One of the main goals of restructuring the agency is to reduce reliance on the import of strategic commodities,” Damaty said.
Greater domestic production, she explained, would help conserve foreign currency.
Ahmed Abdel Gawad, head of the Nation’s Future Party’s parliamentary bloc, described the law as a constructive step, noting that lawmakers had carefully reviewed all provisions and reached broad agreement on expanding the agency’s role in sustainable development.