CAIRO, May 4 (Reuters) - Egypt's purchase of local wheat during this harvest season is so far more than seven times the amount acquired in the same period last year, a state-run newspaper quoted Prime Minister Hisham Kandil on Saturday as saying.
He said this made the state self-sufficiency from wheat production up 65 percent from 45 percent last year.
Egypt usually imports around 10 million tonnes of wheat a year but this year the state says it will buy only around 4 to 5 million tonnes from abroad.
It hoped to get the rest from local production but some farmers said this was an unrealistic goal due to shortages in irrigation and fuel.
More than two years of political turmoil since a popular uprising ousted President Hosni Mubarak have frightened away tourists and foreign investors.
This had drained foreign currency reserves used to pay for imports, especially for a strategic item like wheat needed by the government to keep providing low-cost bread crucial for its 50 percent poor people.
A cabinet statement released late on Thursday said the amount of local wheat purchased since the start of the harvest season on April 1 and until May 2 was 284,000 tonnes from 36,203 at the same period last year.
Kandil has previously said there are indications this year's crop could reach 9.5 million tonnes, echoing predictions by other officials.
A bread shortage in 2008 and similar problems in the 1970s caused riots at a time when demonstrations were not as common as they are in post-revolutionary Egypt.
Supply Minister Bassem Ouda said previously the government was working to build more and better wheat silos to increase the state's storage capacity to 1.6 million tonnes from 1.3 million.
Egypt announced last March it is planning to build 150 silos ahead of its 2014 wheat harvest.
(Reporting by Yasmine Saleh; editing by James Jukwey)
((yasmine.saleh@thomsonreuters.com)(+202 2578 3290))
Keywords: EGYPT WHEAT/HARVEST
