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Agricultural investment in Sudan to resume early 2009

AMMAN - The stalled Jordanian agricultural megaproject in Sudan is expected to be resumed at the beginning of 2009, an Agriculture Ministry official told The Jordan Times on Thursday.

"We expect the recently established [private] company to embark on the project by then after an update to the project's feasibility study is finalised within a month," the ministry's director of private sector affairs, Abdullah Shishani, told The Jordan Times last week.

The government has this year decided to update data related to $359,000 project, funded by the Islamic Bank in Jeddah, in light of the skyrocketing prices of commodities and services. The ministry promoted the venture among the local private sector and found investors interested.

Once the feasibility study is complete, Shishani said, the government will sign an agreement with the company, which comprises four Jordanian firms that decided to implement the project and benefit from the entailed customs exemptions and other incentives provided by the Sudanese government.

He added that the company founders have had a firsthand look at the situation of the project in Sudan during a self-initiated, four-day visit to Sudan that started on August 5. He said they met with Sudanese officials who facilitated their access to the location.

"The visit was an opportunity for them to figure out the actual potential of the project, in addition to the infrastructure laid down by Sudanese government, which included paving a direct highway linking the project site with Port Sudan to facilitate the export of their products," the official said.

Hijazi and Ghosheh Group CEO Issam Hijazi said yesterday that his company, a leading livestock and food importer/manufacturer interested in the venture, is keen to implement the project despite the drop in the international prices of agricultural products.

"The change in prices of cereals and animal feed products is undeniably significant; therefore we need to take this into consideration when negotiating with the government," Hijazi told The Jordan Times, adding that the company founders and the government are currently discussing a proposed draft agreement governing the work of the company.

The Jordan-Sudan project started in 1998 when Jordan signed an agricultural protocol with the Sudanese government entitling the Kingdom to utilise 250,000 dunums of a highly fertile plot of land on the banks of the Nile.

Under the scheme, Jordan was entitled to grow its essential cereals and other crops including animal fodder and to rear livestock. But the project was shelved and Khartoum set 2009 as a deadline for Jordan to make up its mind, either to start actual investment or risk losing the opportunity.

Prime Minister Nader Dahabi on Wednesday said Jordan will forge ahead with investment on Sudan's agricultural lands.

Dahabi made the remarks during the meetings of the Joint Jordanian-Sudanese Higher Committee, which convened the same day.

Jordan's investments in Sudan stand at $1 billion, with a large chunk of these projects benefitting from the incentives Sudan offers in the agriculture sector.

Recently, noted the ministry's director of policies and international cooperation, Falah Awamleh, two Jordanian investors have signed an agreement with the Sudanese ministry of agriculture to cultivate a total of 400 dunums.

"This is an individual agreement that the ministry did not take part in, yet the investors benefited from the same incentives enjoyed by the Jordan-Sudan project," Awamleh said.

By Hani Hazaimeh

© Jordan Times 2008