CAIRO- Egypt will soon begin selling state-owned land to help finance the restructuring of public sector companies, the public enterprises minister said on Tuesday.

The ministry will change the zoning of 182 plots of industrial land owned by public sector companies for real estate use and gradually sell them to the private sector, Hisham Tawfik told an economic conference in Cairo.

The ministry is working to get local permissions before it begins offering the plots for sale, he added, without giving details on the plots' locations or value.

Reuters could not immediately reach the ministry for further comment.

The government has drawn up plans to turn around loss-making sectors including textile, chemical, pharmaceutical and metallurgical industries, which have been neglected for decades.

Tawfik also said that Egypt will offer 22% to 25% of shares in Heliopolis Company For Housing and Development on the Egyptian stock exchange in the first quarter of 2020.

(Reporting by Ehab Farouk; Writing by Patrick Werr; Editing by Yousef Saba and Andrew Cawthorne) ((Yousef.Saba@thomsonreuters.com; +201222184730))