CAIRO — The world’s top wheat importer
Egypt said Wednesday it is to receive $500 million from the World Bank to alleviate
the impact of war between its main suppliers Russia and Ukraine.
اضافة اعلان
“The World Bank financing will support the
government’s efforts to meet food needs and enhance resilience to future
shocks,” International Cooperation Minister Rania Al-Mashat said in a
statement.
Egypt’s food security has been under mounting
pressure since Russia invaded Ukraine in late February causing massive
disruption to exports from Black Sea ports.
Before the invasion, the two countries accounted for
85 percent of Egypt’s wheat imports.
The new tranche of
World Bank financing will go
towards “funding wheat purchases” as well as “increasing wheat storage
capacities” in anticipation of future crises, the ministry said.
Since the war began, the government has already
ramped up wheat purchases from domestic farmers as well as trialing wheat
substitutes in a bid to counter the supply shortfall.
On Tuesday, state bakeries in New Valley province in
the southwest hailed successful trials of “sweet potato bread”, Egyptian media
reported.
The adjusted recipes use sweet potato to supplement
wheat in the flour used to make state-subsidized flatbread — an everyday staple
for the country’s 103 million people.
Some 71.5 million Egyptians rely on bread subsidies,
which account for 57 percent of the state’s subsidy budget, according to
official figures.
Soaring world commodity prices helped to push
Egyptian inflation to a three-year high of 15.3 percent in June, according to
official figures.
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