For 1st time, Egypt’s wheat stock sufficient for 7 months: Minister

CAIRO – July 7, 2022: For the first time Egypt’s strategic reserve of wheat became sufficient for 7 months thanks to the shipments that were recently purchased from abroad, said Egyptian Minister of Supply Ali Meselhi in meeting with Prime Minister Moustafa MAdbouli on Wednesday.

The Minister added that sugar stock is sufficient for the need for domestic consumption for 7.8 months, noting that this will be followed by the harvest season of the beet and sugarcane crops.

The Egyptian General Authority for Supply Commodities (GASC) said last week that it had offered an international tender to purchase 815,000 tons of wheat that would be shipped over August, September and October 2022.

Earlier, Egyptian Minister of Supply, Ali Moselhi, said that Egypt had contracted to buy 180,000 tons of wheat from India, which is less than what was previously agreed upon (500,000 tons).

He added that about 3.920 million tons of local wheat have been received from the farmers so far, with a rise between 11 percent and 12 percent compared to the last year.

French Ambassador to Cairo Marc Barety told press Monday that his country is a producer of wheat and that it prioritizes exporting the crop to Egypt in the current harvest season.

Egypt is currently suffering from a crisis of wheat supply from the conflicting Russia and Ukraine, the two biggest wheat importers to Egypt. So, the government is targeting to increase the area of the wheat crops by 1.5 million feddans over the next three years in accordance with a new study conducted by the Egyptian Cabinet's Information and Decision Support Center (IDSC).