Saudi Arabia: Saudi Arabia Privatizes Flour Mills
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Saudi Arabia’s Council of Ministers took a decision on November 9, 2015 to restructure the Grain Silos and Flour Mills Organization (GSFMO) under a new name, the General Organization for Grains (GOG). The Council of Ministers’ decision will authorize the Public Investment Fund of the Ministry of Finance to re-group nine existing flour mills into four companies to be later on sold to interested private sector buyers through a competitive bidding process. Foreign investors will be allowed to compete with Saudi investors to own and operate these flour mills. The new milling companies will serve as clients of the GOG to process and distribute wheat flour for fees to their government approved customers at agreed subsidized prices. The nine flour mills have a combined daily milling capacity of 12,630 metric tons of wheat and currently process about 3.3 million metric tons of wheat annually.