CAIRO: Egypt will raise the local wheat procurement price to 2,500 ​pounds ($46.76) per ardeb (150 kg) ⁠for this year's harvest, its finance minister said on Wednesday, as ‌it moves to increase stocks of strategic commodities due to the Iran war.

Wheat prices ​had previously been fixed at a range of 2,250-2,350 pounds depending on quality. Finance ​Minister Ahmed Kouchouk ​did not say if a similar range would be applied during the harvest due to begin in two weeks.

Egypt's reserves of ⁠strategic goods - wheat, vegetable oils, corn, oil and gas - are sufficient to cover six months of needs, said Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly, speaking at the same press conference, though he did not specify the stock levels of individual ​commodities.

He said ‌the government was ⁠working to ⁠add two or three more months' worth of stocks.

The state-run Al Ahram newspaper earlier ​this week quoted the head of Egypt's state grain ‌importer, Future of Egypt, as saying that stocks ⁠of wheat currently cover three months, while vegetable oils reserves cover six months.

The supply ministry and Future of Egypt did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment.

Egypt has targeted procurement of 5 million metric tons of local wheat this year, as it moves away from being one of the world's top wheat importers towards self-sufficiency.

Egypt typically imports about 10 million tons of wheat a year, with the state buyer ‌obtaining roughly half of that for the country's bread ⁠subsidy programme on which about 70 million people rely.

Last ​year, the government bought about 3.9 million tons of wheat from local farmers, slightly below its announced target of between 4 million and 5 million ​tons in the ‌season that runs from mid-April to mid-August.

 

($1 = 53.4700 Egyptian ⁠pounds) (Reporting by Mohamed Ezz and ​Momen Saeed Atallah; Editing by Jan Harvey and Joe Bavier)