US-based food and industrial product firm Cargill is set to develop a grain storage project in Egypt, according to local media reports.

The firm is set to develop a storage project in the port of Dakhelya that will hold up to 42,000 metric tonnes of grain, Egypt’s Minister of Industry and Trade, Tarek Qabil, told reporters during a press conference in Cairo.

The minister also told reporters that the firm is planning further projects in agriculture, transport and logistics, with an aim to increase its investments in Egypt to $300m.

In late 2016, Qabil launched Cairo’s Industrial Plan 2020, which aims to boost non-oil exports by 10 per cent a year to $30bn by 2020.

The total volume of Egyptian non-petroleum exports reached about $18.6bn in 2015. Qabil said in late 2016: “the ministry plans on implementing a number of programmes to improve procedures and legislations regulating Egypt’s import-export industry”.

The strategy also targets upgrading the competitiveness of Egypt’s exports, improving the specifications and qualities of exports and imports, developing logistical and transport projects, activating global agreements as well as establishing a programme aiming to promote Egyptian exports.