*** Activities ***

Newsletters

















1- Chronology of main actions

1. 9th April 2017: the first steering committee has taken place in Cairo, GWP was approved
2. August 2017: Egyptian co financing has been approved by financial department of MALR for a total of 14 m. EGP, and first instalment equal to 9.6 m EGP has been transferred to AEnRI
3. 12th October 2017: H.E. the Deputy Minister of MALR and Egyptian delegates met the representatives of MAECI/AICS and CPD in Rome, discussing possible variation at the L.A. concerning the tide/untied components of the loan. The formal request with a proposed text was sent to AICS Cairo on 1st February 2018
4. 26th November 2017: the Prior information notice concerning the tender dossier N.1 for the agriculture machinery has been published in the official website of MALR.
5. 14th December 2017: once completed the tender dossier to select the Auditor Company and the relevant short-list of eligible Companies, the Non-Objection (NO) has been requested to the Italian Authorities; the NO was issued on March 2018.
6. 13th December 2017: once completed the tender dossier to procure the Lot 1 of Agricultural Machinery and the relevant specifications, the Non-Objection (NO) has been requested to the Italian Authorities; the NO was issued on March 2018.
7. 4th of March 2018: having ascertained the impossibility of obtaining Duties and Tax exemptions for the machines that will be purchased with the Italian Loan, H.E. the Minister of MALR requested MoP to allocate 33 m. EGP to SAMSIMIFA project, to cover the cost of said Taxes and Duties and put MALR in a position to clear the machines upon arrival at Terminal with no delay.

2- List of Activities performed on 2017 and relevant Achievements

1. Set up of the Project Structure completed and almost 80% of the relevant HR identified and appointed, including 2 CIHEAM-Bari Focal Point engineers in the two Governorates. (See list of appointed staff in Attachment n.2). The project structure has been realized to strength the cooperation of local experts with CIHEAM Bari/international experts which will get mutual benefit in the implementation of project activities.
2. The allocation of 14 m. EGP of local fund was approved by the MoP; the first instalment (69%) for the F.Y. 2017-2018 has been credited on SAMSIMIFA account in August (See Ministerial letter with the resolution in Attachment n. 3). The relevant works on the selected Pilot Mechanization Centres are under execution (30%); the activities performed on this fund are the following:
a. Project design for rehabilitation of the 3 selected Pilot Mechanization Centres (3.2 m EGP):
i. Design completed (in cooperation among MALR civil engineers and CIHEAM Bari expert architect)
ii. Tender for CW completed,
iii. Contract awarded and signed,
iv. order to commence issued
b. as per point 3a above, relevant to the repair of some existing Agriculture Machinery (3 m EGP)
c. purchase of new seed-drill: contract signed with manufacturer (3 m EGP)
3. Starting the activity of Study tour, including capacity building and training assessment. The training activities in Italyconnected with theselection of the machinesto be purchased with thefirst Tender, were carriedout and completed inOctober-November; theactivity included atraining session divided intwo groups of trainees fora total of 16 MALR staffamong all project stakeholders (AEnRI, AMS-HSS/ARC, CAAC, CAAE) directors,researchers, managers coming from HQs, Minia and Fayoum Governorate. In the Figure isgiven a synthetic description of the session (one of the two courses realized). Internationalexperts in agriculture machinery and economy have been selected as courses’ trainersamong CIHEAM Bari experts’ rooster and Italian University of Bari and Foggia. Thejourney in Italy included the participating at International exhibition AGRILEVANTE inBari and in a meeting with FEDERUNACOMA President in Bari; the scope of this activitywas linked to the internal decision-making process for the identification of the list ofmachines and their specifications, to be included in the Tender Dossier for Lot 1.

4. In October, a formal meeting was held in Rome between the Ministerial Egyptian Delegation, led by the Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Land Reclamation, H.E. Mohamed AbdelTawab, and the Italian Cooperation Authorities, during which both sides agree to start a procedure for formulating and approving an amendment to the Loan Agreement concerning the tied/untied component of the soft loan;
5. The internal analysis of the tide/untied component of the loan was conducted together with the definition of the list of machinery, Lot 1 which tender will follow the current version of the LA. The first draft proposal of amendment was sent by MALR to AICS on 1st February c.a. (See Draft text of LA amendment in Attachment n. 4).
6. The list of machinery and relevant specs for Lot 1, for about 2 m EUR was issued (100%); (See list of machinery Lot 1 in Attachment n. 5) Workshops and awareness-raising sessions at central and local level have been implemented increasing the number of stakeholders and their involvement in the definition of the technical specifications of the machines to be procured. In particular, field missions in Minia and Fayoum and analysis of the fieldreports have been realized with the support of CIHEAM Bari international experts during short mission in Egypt and in backstopping from Italy, improving cooperation between Italian and Egyptian expert of the topic sharing knowledge about innovative technology and actual market opportunities to individuate together the appropriate agriculture machinery sustainable for the needs of the target territory in terms of key crops, farm size, required services.
7. Tender Dossier completed for procurement of both, Auditing Services and Agricultural Machinery, Lot 1 (See list of the two sets of TD in Attachment n. 6)
8. The Non-Objection from the Italian side on TD for procurement of Auditor services has been issued on March 2018 and the one on the TD for Purchase of Machinery, Lot 1 is on the way.
9. The procedure to assure additional local funds to cover Taxes and Custom Duties is now started and formal request of allocation of 33 m EGP from MALR to MoP has been signed and sent.
10. Some other activities are started, but have not yet reached consolidated results to be reported; the main are concerns the survey of Cooperatives and selection of minimum two Pilot Cooperatives per each Governorate to benefit of supply of new machines; coordination process among SAMSIMIFA and JRDP is also ready to be established with the specific aim of implementing synergies and enhance the impact of the reciprocal actions on the farmers and other common beneficiaries.

Conclusion

One year and three months from the beginning of the project, SAMSIMIFA has scored important operative results among those foreseen by both the LA and the IA: GoE contribution of 14 m.
EGP allocated; tender for selecting Auditing Company launched; list of machines, Lot1, approved and relevant tender officially announced in the MoALR Web site, first part of training and capacity building in Italy concluded, TA fully consolidated and almost 50% of the first installment spent.During this first year of implementation of the project, however, two specific needs emerged,requiring a modification of the LA and its Annex 1.
The first modification concerns the description given in column “remarks”, Tab. C of the Annex 1; it does not involve any change to the budget and its distribution in the 5 macro items of expenditure; the new description proposed by the PMU is given in Fig. 6 above and submitted to SC for approval.
The second change concerns the untied component of the loan; as provided for in Clause 5.2.1 ofthe LA, it must be applied to each individual supply contract up to a maximum of 20%.
For the wide spectrum of Agricultural Machines required by the Project, this condition can be fulfilled mainly by dealers and not by manufacturers; in order to extend the tender to manufacturer, the PMU proposed a first draft of LA amendment through a formal letter on February 2018.
In the event that the amendment was not yet approved at the time of the second tender, scheduled forNovember 2018, the PMU asks the SC to authorize the distribution of the purchase of the machines Lot 2 in at least two batches instead of one; the launch of the tender for Lot 3, not exceeding 20% of the credit, may be postponed, but not later than February 2019, in order to avail the LA amendment, if approved and entered into force.