Sudan

Three new investment funds controlled by prominent Gulf investors will sink at least US$2.8 billion (Dh10.3 bn) into infrastructure, agriculture and hospitality projects in the Middle East and South Asia.

"Depuis quelques mois, nous observons un regain d'intérêt pour nos terres, des acheteurs s'emparent de très grandes surfaces acquises avec des facilités dérangeantes, dans la zone du lac de Guiers, par exemple", affirme Ndiogou Fall, sénégalais et président exécutif de la Roppa

L'Etat cède 880000 hectares de terre arable pour 670 millions d'euros. Publiée mi-août par le Financial Times, l'annonce du gouvernement soudanais n'est plus vraiment une nouveauté. Comme d'autres avant lui, le pays est prêt à céder un territoire presque aussi grand que l'Ile-de-France à des investisseurs étrangers trop contents de s'exécuter.

Al Qudra Holding, the Abu Dhabi-based investment company, plans to acquire roughly 400,000 hectares of land in the Middle East, East Africa and Far East by the end of the first quarter of next year in a major expansion of its agricultural operations.

Oil-giant Saudi Arabia plans to set up a new investment fund to buy agricultural land overseas in an effort to meet rising food demand in the Middle East’s largest economy, a Saudi official said.

“We are investing in land in Sudan, Pakistan and Egypt to secure food supplies without being at the mercy of market fluctuations,” Dr Rashid Ahmad Bin Fahd, Minister of Environment and Water, said at a conference in Dubai yesterday.

Alarmed by exporting countries’ trade restrictions, importing countries have realised that their dependence on the international food market makes them vulnerable not only to an abrupt surge in prices but, more crucially, to an interruption in supplies.

THE Qatar Company for Meat and Livestock Trading (Mawashi) is looking towards investing in Kurdistan since that region in Iraq is the source of Arabian livestock, which has a high demand in the region, an official said yesterday.

Even as it receives a billion pounds of free food from international donors, Sudan is growing and selling vast quantities of its own crops to other countries, capitalizing on high global food prices at a time when millions of people in its war-riddled region of Darfur barely have enough to eat.

The United Arab Emirates is beefing up its agricultural investments in Sudan in wake of a food crisis that led to world wide protests primarily in developing nations.

Gulf banks and businessmen were yesterday urged to invest less money in the real estate sector and turn to food industries.

As part of Doha’s efforts to ensure food security, Qatar and Sudan yesterday agreed to establish a joint holding company, which is expected to focus on agricultural investment, food industry and animal husbandry.