Strategic sugar reserve enough for 8 months: Supply min.

CAIRO – 12 June 2019: Minister of Supply and Internal Trade Ali el-Moselhi said Wednesday that the strategic reserve of sugar is sufficient for eight months.

During his meeting with the Higher Committee of Sugar, He added that the average sugar consumption ranges between 230,000 to 240,000 tons per month.

Moselhi called sugar companies to estimate the gap between the expected domestic production and consumption in the coming period in order to take necessary measures to import the remaining quantity.

According to official data issued earlier by the Ministry of Supply, Egypt's consumption of sugar is 3.2 million tons, of which 2.3 million tons are domestically produced.

In October, Head of Sugar Division at the Federation of Industries Hassan Fendi said that Egypt’s need of sugar increases annually by 50,000 tons because of the population.

Fendi clarified that this demand requires the establishment of a complete sugar industry line every 3 years to produce 150,000 tons annually to fill the current and future gap.

The government imports about 800,000 to 1 million tons of sugar per year to support the deficit in local production. Sugar production from reeds stands at about 1 million tons annually, while its production from beets reached 1.2 million tons and the rest is imported from abroad.