RIYADH: Saudi Arabia plans to set up in two months time a SR2 billion holding company to invest in agriculture overseas to ensure food security, Agricultural Minister Fahd Balghunaim said.
The new company, a partnership between the public sector and domestic private companies, is part of a program to ensure adequate and cheap food supplies in the Kingdom, Al-Madinah newspaper reported yesterday.
The company will focus on items that either cannot be grown in the Kingdom such as rice and sugar, or need plenty of water supplies such as wheat, barley and animal fodder, the minister said.
The government had earlier hinted at plans to reduce by 12.5 percent each year the amount of wheat bought from local farmers, abandoning a 30-year program to grow wheat and which achieved self-sufficiency but depleted the Kingdom’s scarce water supplies.
The government said in May it would swiftly provide land for stockpiling basic staples and would increase global investments to ensure long-term food security.
The General Investment Fund (GIF), a subsidiary of the Finance Ministry, announced in a meeting with representatives of the private sector last month that SR2 billion would be the capital of the proposed company.
