The Future of Egypt’s Authority: Sisi’s Military Empire, From Real Estate to Dairy

The rise of the Future of Egypt represents an advanced model of the “state within a state,” where Egypt’s economy is being reengineered under strict security oversight and operated as a closed estate controlled by military institutions.

This structure not only undermines any prospects for meaningful economic reform but also creates a deeply fragile economic and social environment. Its survival is entirely dependent on the continuity of the current political regime and a rentier model dictated by military directives, not market principles.

In the summer of 2025, the Future of Egypt for Sustainable Development Authority—the new economic arm of the Egyptian Air Force—marked a significant milestone in its rapid expansion across the national economy.

Within days, the authority announced two major projects that reflected its latest transformation. The first, unveiled in early June, was a partnership agreement with three major private developers to launch a new city named “Jaryan,” located on the banks of the new Nile tributary near Sheikh Zayed. Spanning over 1,600 feddans, the project is expected to cost around 1.5 trillion Egyptian pounds (approximately $31 billion).

This massive real estate venture blends luxury housing, artificial lakes, international hotels, and foreign universities.

On the same day, the Ministry of Health announced the launch of Egypt’s first local infant formula factory, also in partnership with the Future of Egypt, in a bid to ease the shortage of imported baby formula. For the first time, the military is taking direct control of a sector that is both socially and economically sensitive.

These two projects are only the latest additions to a sprawling web of economic activity managed by the authority, backed by a legal framework established in 2022 under Presidential Decree No. 591. In reality, however, the Authority's expansion began in 2020 under the direct supervision of Air Force officers.

Origins and Expansion

A detailed report published by the local outlet Mada Masr on June 5, 2025, mapped out the Authority’s meteoric rise. Initially, it served as a minor wing of the government’s “1.5 Million Feddan” agricultural initiative launched in 2015.

Within a few years, however, it evolved into a key player in Egypt’s food security strategy and agricultural resource control.

According to the report, by 2017, the Future of Egypt had been allocated only 200,000 feddans of land under the supervision of the New Egyptian Countryside Development Company, alongside plots designated for other military bodies such as the Air Defense Forces, the National Service Projects Organization, and the Ministry of Agriculture.

Yet, within less than three years, it managed to fully cultivate this land—producing essential crops for the local market such as wheat, barley, corn, and beets, as well as export crops like potatoes, onions, and citrus fruits.

Its rapid success, especially when compared to other stalled projects, earned it direct political support. In 2021, Head of the Egyptian Regime Abdel Fattah el-Sisi tasked its executive director, Air Force Colonel Bahaa el-Ghannam, with managing an additional area exceeding one million feddans.

This expanded the Future of Egypt’s role within the 2.2-million-feddan “New Delta” project in western Egypt.

The following year, a presidential decree quietly elevated the initiative to an independent authority—though the decision has yet to be published in the official gazette, according to Mada Masr.

This institutional shift coincided with a massive wave of land and project allocations. The Future of Egypt’s reach now extends from the Western Desert near el-Dabaa, to Aswan and al-Owainat in the south, and across North and Central Sinai in the east.

Its ambition is to cultivate 4.5 million feddans by 2027—nearly half of Egypt’s current agricultural land—and create two million jobs in the process. The Future of Egypt now holds a significant share of presidential decrees granting land to the military and its affiliated institutions.

Profound Shifts

Alongside its horizontal expansion in agriculture, the Future of Egypt launched a series of related industrial projects, including crop drying and storage, sugar production from beets, manufacturing molasses and animal feed, as well as building large-scale potato refrigeration units and grain silos.

Yet the deeper and more significant transformation came with the project’s growing authority over sovereign portfolios that had traditionally belonged to civilian ministries. In 2024, it was entrusted with importing wheat and other strategic commodities—tasks that had been under the purview of the General Authority for Supply Commodities for five decades. It also began issuing import approvals for livestock, a responsibility previously held by the Ministry of Agriculture.

According to sources cited in the report, its activities have since expanded into livestock farming, dairy production, and poultry operations.

Parallel to this growing influence, the Future of Egypt assumed control over the management of four of Egypt’s largest natural lakes: Lake Nasser in the south, and the Manzala, Burullus, and Bardawil lakes in the north.

These lakes were stripped from the jurisdiction of the Lakes and Fish Resources Protection and Development Authority—a body established only a few years ago to replace the General Authority for Fish Resources, which had been under the Prime Minister's office.

In early 2025, the Future of Egypt also acquired the largest stake in the Egyptian Commodities Exchange.

The acquisition came just a few years after the exchange was founded in 2020 by cabinet decree, and it is now under the agency's direct supervision.

This move is part of broader plans to incorporate key products, including staple crops, animal feed, fertilizers, and agricultural pesticides, effectively making the exchange a central tool for controlling the entire market.

This sweeping expansion has been accompanied by extensive promotional campaigns, including official government statements, sustained media coverage, parliamentary support in both chambers, and an active online presence via a Facebook page titled “Fans of Colonel Bahaa el-Ghannam,” where Agency members and staff frequently engage.

The Future of Egypt’s growing visibility was cemented when Head of the Egyptian regime Abdel Fattah el-Sisi inaugurated its new headquarters in early May 2025. During the ceremony, the Agency’s chief, Colonel Bahaa el-Ghannam, delivered a comprehensive presentation outlining the Future of Egypt’s plans for agriculture and food security.

On the same day, agency spokesman Khaled Salah announced the start of talks with the private sector to establish Egypt’s first domestic factory for infant formula. The project is expected to require $500 million in investment, the importation of 40,000 cows, and the cultivation of 50,000 feddans of alfalfa—though no official feasibility study has yet been made public.

Signs of Dysfunction

The core challenge facing the rise of the Future of Egypt Agency goes beyond its expanding powers; it begins with the management structure itself, which is gradually transforming the Agency into a closed economic entity resembling a holding company.

As its responsibilities multiply and sensitive portfolios accumulate under its authority, the absence of oversight has extended beyond financial matters such as budgeting and profits. It now includes a lack of institutional mechanisms for accountability and auditing.

According to an investigative report published by the local outlet Zawya 3 on November 4, 2024, the Agency has effectively created a parallel bureaucracy—ironically, under the premise of bypassing the very inefficiencies of Egypt’s traditional bureaucracy.

At the same time, employees of the Agency are, according to the report, subject to military tribunals for any job-related infractions, effectively shutting down any prospects for internal accountability or administrative transparency.

These structural flaws became glaringly evident when the responsibility for wheat imports was transferred from the General Authority for Supply Commodities to the Future of Egypt Agency.

Despite recruiting personnel from the Ministry of Supply and experienced grain importers, the Agency quickly ran into a major obstacle: top global suppliers—such as Russia, Ukraine, and Argentina—refused to engage with it, viewing it as an unfamiliar entity with no track record in international markets.

The Ministry of Supply attempted to resolve the issue by sending formal letters to foreign governments, including Russia, affirming that the Future of Egypt had become the country’s official wheat buyer. But this failed to change the suppliers’ stance for an extended period.

As a result of the stalled imports, the Agency was forced to shift tactics—resorting to purchasing wheat shipments from local traders after they had already arrived at Egyptian ports.

“When they first took over the file, they couldn’t buy directly from abroad. For months, they kept sending colonels to the ports,” one major grain importer told the outlet.

“Every time a wheat ship docked, they summoned the importer to Almaza Airport and asked him to sell the shipment—or part of it—in Egyptian pounds, citing the state’s needs as justification.”

These ad hoc measures triggered repeated disruptions in the domestic wheat market, leading to price hikes and growing instability.

Assiut Road Dispute

Alongside its growing influence, the Future of Egypt’s reach expanded to include agricultural lands held for decades—a reality that came to light through a dispute near the western Assiut Road, close to the Giza and Faiyum governorates, on May 27, 2025.

Members of the New Faiyum Agricultural Cooperative filed formal complaints with the Cabinet and the Armed Forces, protesting attempts by the Future of Egypt agency to evict them from lands they have owned since the 1980s.

According to documents they submitted, these farmers hold official land tenure contracts issued by the Ministry of Agriculture, cultivation permits from the Armed Forces, as well as formal bank loan agreements.

Despite this, the farmers were forced to sign new lease contracts at inflated rates ranging between 13,000 and 18,000 Egyptian pounds per feddan annually.

They were also prevented from harvesting their crops after security checkpoints blocked the roads leading to their lands.

At the heart of this dispute lies the Agency’s intent to acquire ready-for-reclamation lands, rather than starting from scratch, following the state’s reclamation of vast areas in the same region that had previously belonged to Kuwaiti companies.

All these practices reveal the structural flaws within the agency, which lacks a transparent legal foundation and a declared regulatory framework.

Although a presidential decree established the Agency, this decree has yet to be published in the official gazette or the Egyptian legal records.

Without its official publication, the Agency’s mandate remains legally ambiguous, leaving it vulnerable to future constitutional challenges.

Hybrid Entities

Explaining the dynamics behind the rise of the Future of Egypt amid the absence of a clear legal framework, Carnegie Middle East Center researcher Yazid Sayigh noted that el-Sisi’s era is characterized by granting exceptional powers to individuals who demonstrate immediate results.

This has happened with figures like Transport Minister Kamel al-Wazir and Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly, Sayigh said during a podcast episode on May 28, 2025, with Egyptian journalist Hafez al-Mirazi. “Sisi tends to replicate models he sees as successful in his eyes.”

Sayigh viewed the Future of Egypt project as a microcosm of a broader policy pursued by the regime: dismantling the traditional state and creating alternative entities that operate beyond legislative and administrative oversight.

“What is happening is not bureaucratic reform, but a complete bypass of it through the creation of structures that are not subject to any legal system or accountability mechanisms,” he added.

Sayigh raised a crucial question: “If the goal is to establish a profit-driven entity managing public funds, why isn’t it run within state-owned enterprises subject to accounting and disclosure laws?”

He warned that the persistence of these hybrid entities ultimately threatens the very structure of the Egyptian state itself.