CAIRO - Egypt's government, often the world's top wheat importer, procured nearly 4 million metric tons of wheat during the now ended local harvest, an official told Reuters on Monday.

Government purchases of the 2025 harvest rose by more than half a million tons from last year when it procured 3.43 million tons, said Ahmad Idam, head of the services sector at the ministry of agriculture.

The government had aimed to procure between 4 million and 5 million tons of wheat from the local harvest, which it estimated at a total of around 10 million tons. The season started mid-April and ran through mid-August.

Egypt typically supplements its domestic harvest with about 5 million tons of imports annually to support its strategic reserves and subsidised bread system.

(Reporting by Momen Saeed Atallah; Writing by Nayera Abdallah; Editing by Joe Bavier)