A harvester reaps beets at a plantation in a desert in Minya Province, Egypt, home to the world’s biggest beet sugar factory, owned by the Jamal Al Ghurair family of the UAE. (Photo: Xinhua)SCMP | 4 June 2025
China’s agritech brings water to Egypt’s giant beet sugar factory in Sahara Desert
by Alice Li
Near the edge of the Sahara Desert, in Egypt’s West Minya, Chinese drillers bore deep into the earth, tapping groundwater to irrigate a once 500-hectare stretch of desert – now home to the world’s largest beet sugar factory.
China’s Zhongman Petroleum has drilled 193 wells over the past three years to irrigate the farm, which supplies Canal Sugar – a joint venture backed by investors from the United Arab Emirates and Egypt – with an annual capacity of 900,000 tonnes, according to the state-run Xinhua News Agency.
To tackle unstable aquifers and prevent the collapse of wells, Zhongman used air-foam drilling – a method that replaces traditional mud with a mix of air and foaming agents – to reduce leakage and improve efficiency. Many Egyptian drilling companies have since adopted the technique.
The drilling project is part of China’s efforts in recent years to export agricultural technology to emerging markets, especially in the Middle East, as it seeks to expand cooperation through technical know-how.
Analysts said the partnership reflects a strategic alignment. As Chinese companies pursue more overseas opportunities in response to domestic economic pressures, Middle Eastern countries increasingly look to Chinese expertise to address their own development challenges.
In mid-May, when US President Donald Trump kicked off his investment-focused visit to the Middle East in Saudi Arabia, the Kingdom’s agricultural officials were signing deals with Chinese companies in Beijing – ultimately securing 57 agreements worth 26.9 billion yuan (US$ 3.7 billion).
The deals spanned a range of projects in the environmental, water, agricultural, fisheries and livestock sectors. Key initiatives include knowledge exchanges on water recycling, the development of human capacity-building programmes, the establishment of seaweed cultivation stations and the production of biofuels and biofertilisers, according to the state-run Saudi Press Agency.