Egypt has targeted procurement of five million metric tons of local wheat next season as it moves away from being one of the world’s top wheat importers to self-sufficiency, the supply ministry said on Sunday.
Egypt typically imports about 10 million tons a year, with the state buyer obtaining roughly half of that for the country’s bread subsidy programme on which 70 million people rely.
In the first half of this year, however, imports were a quarter less than the same period last year, according to shipping and trading data reviewed by Reuters. The government’s share of those imports dropped by more than half to about 1.6 million tons, reflecting slower procurement since the state buyer changed from the General Authority for Supply Commodities (GASC) to the military-linked Future of Egypt for Sustainable Development (Mostakbal Misr).
While the supply ministry said that it procured more than 4 million tons of wheat during the domestic harvest, data seen by Reuters shows that the government bought about 3.9 million tons, slightly below its announced target of between 4 million and 5 million tons in the season from mid-April to mid-August.
Reserves of strategic commodities are within safe buffers and as high as last year or higher in some commodities, the supply ministry added without providing more data.
In November 2024, Egypt’s wheat stocks covered five months of consumption, below the six-month threshold Egypt hopes to maintain. Last week Reuters reported that the Future of Egypt, which took over purchasing in December, had ditched the formal tenders of GASC in favour of informal negotiations, spurring mounting trade tensions and a drop in Egypt’s wheat imports.
(Reporting by Momen Saeed Atallah and Mohamed Ezz Writing by Muhammad Al Gebaly Editing by David Goodman)