Wed, 09 Jan 2008

GLS Bank launches new Sekem fund

By Adrian Wagner

STUTTGART (NNA) - As part of the long-term collaboration between the Sekem initiative in Egypt and GLS Bank, the bank launched its GLS SEKEM Fund last September.

At an event with Sekem’s founder and Alternative Nobel Prize winner, Dr Ibrahim Abouleish, in Stuttgart at the end of last year, it was announced that a loan of five million euros is to be made available to Sekem for urgently needed expansion.

The fund requires a minimum investment of 5000 euros over a term of five years. Alongside an annual dividend of 6.2 percent, the fund represented above all the opportunity to make a constructive investment, Dr.  Abouleish said.

With a growth rate of 24 percent, Sekem looks set to continue its success story.

The investment was needed to expand production capacities and achieve clear efficiency increases as the demand for Sekem products continued to grow, the Sekem founder said. The money would be used to finance the expansion of the areas of organic cultivation and extend and replace production systems.

The collaboration between the GLS Bank and Sekem began in 1977 when the initiative applied for funds to finance the transport of cows from southern Germany to the Egyptian desert.

At the time it was not yet obvious that the initiative would turn into a successful international enterprise which not only acts in a socially and ecologically responsible manner but is also initiating sustained change in Egypt.

“There is no minister who does not send his guests to visit us,” Dr.  Abouleish remarked.

Today Sekem employs 1,800 staff near Cairo and is the Egyptian market leader for biodynamic foods, textiles and herbal medicines. In addition, independent farmers cultivate biodynamic crops which they supply to Sekem.

GLS Bank executive spokesman Thomas Jorberg said that whereas other banks often invested money on the anonymous capital markets with a lack of any value system, this was not the case with the GLS Sekem Fund.

Representatives from the bank visited Sekem on several occasions to undertake checks and settle formalities. With the GLS Sekem Fund it was possible to “make an investment which one can support inwardly,” Jorberg said. He expressed his respect for what had been achieved in Egypt

Dr Abouleish also spoke about the planned Sekem University, which is due to open this year. An EU-funded project had helped train the professors in the interaction with their students.

The university had a specifically practical orientation, and the active integration of young people into the dialogue between the students, the business and local projects was intended to enable them not only to develop ideas but also to give them the tools to implement them.

The event was also attended by the trade attaché from the Egyptian embassy in Berlin and the mayor of Stuttgart. The city is twinned with Cairo.

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Item: 080109-01EN Date: 9 January 2008

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