Egypt’s strategic reserves of wheat hit 4.86M tons

CAIRO – 22 August 2017: Egypt’s strategic reserves of wheat reached 4.857 million tons and is sufficient to cover the country’s needs till the end of February, the Ministry of Supply’s spokesperson told Reuters on Tuesday.

The spokesperson Mamdouh Ramadan noted that Egypt’s wheat reserves, after the last tender, will be enough to cover the domestic need for 6.1 months.

Egypt consumes around 9.6 million tons of wheat annually and is the largest wheat importer around the world, as it imported about 5.580 million tons in the fiscal year (FY) of 2016/2017 compared to 4.440 million tons in the previous year.

On August 16, Egypt purchased 355,000 tons of wheat in a global tender targeting the import of about seven million tons in FY 2017/2018.

Earlier in July, Ramdan said that the government bought around 3.4 million tons of wheat from farmers, while Egypt’s annual need of wheat amounts to 9.7 million tons to cover the domestic need of the subsidized bread being sold in bakeries for five piasters.

The Ministry of Supply issued a decision to stop subsidizing flour starting from August.