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Italy’s AICS contributes €4.55m to agri-projects in Egypt, Iraq
The Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS) is contributing more than €4.55m to two United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) projects in Egypt and Iraq.
The Egypt project has been developed after an in-depth analysis of the Egyptian tomato value chain. Egypt produces about eight million tons of fresh tomatoes per year and is the world’s fifth largest producer, which can be attributed to its suitable climate, dual seasonality and fertile lands. However, only three to four per cent of the tomato crop is processed, and the processing sector suffers from a lack of integration with the supply chain.
The project will enhance the linkages between supply and processing factories, improve the quality of tomato production and processing, strengthen the technical skills of workers and managers in the processing factories, and improve existing marketing strategies in order to tap into new markets.
It aims at value-addition and enhanced technical capacities of youth, thereby increasing employability and job opportunities.
The goal of the Iraq project is to promote existing and potential investments in Iraq in order to expand the share of the private sector’s contribution to the country’s GDP and to create employment opportunities for poverty alleviation and accelerated economic growth of Iraq.
It will have a dual focus, on one hand, increasing direct foreign investment, and on the other, increasing the impact of existing direct foreign investment through skills upgrading and increased local supply chain linkages.
In 2018, Italy was the largest governmental donor providing voluntary contributions to UNIDO.
In a statement at the signing ceremony, UNIDO Director General, LI Yong, expressed his appreciation of Italy’s important financial and political support. Li said, “Italy has always been an effective advocate of UNIDO and of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. We share a common vision to promote inclusive and sustainable industrial development to tackle inequalities at all levels.”
Li noted that the Egypt project will be implemented with the Ministry of Trade and Industry, and the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation, as well as the local private sector, which will be the initiative’s primary beneficiary.
With regard to the Iraq project, Li stated that UNIDO’s Investment and Technology Promotion Office in Italy “has already developed a strong expertise and technical skills in the promotion of investment projects through the establishment of close working relationships with Italy’s industrial private sector.”
In his statement, Ambassador Alessandro Cortese, Permanent Representative of Italy to the International Organizations in Vienna, said, “We believe both projects in Egypt and Iraq represent well our longstanding cooperation with UNIDO and the Italian way of “doing business” with our highly qualified expertise and advanced technologies, while contributing to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda.”
Ambassador Cortese also stated that “these two agreements confirm that the partnership between UNIDO and Italy is deep rooted and very well grounded. It is based on shared geographical and thematic priorities and has brought remarkable results in terms of quality and quantity of technical cooperation delivered through many successful initiatives”.
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