Egypt's sugar reserves are sufficient for four months, stated Minister of Supply and Internal Trade Ali Moselhi.
The government supplies 24,000 tons of sugar to the Mercantile Exchange every week to increase the market supply and contain prices, Moselhi added.
Egypt imported 100,000 tons of sugar to fulfil domestic demand in November and December, Moselhi said in an interview with Asharq Business.
Deputy Minister of Supply and Internal Trade Ibrahim Ashmawy attributed the surge in sugar prices to vendors and food and beverages companies increasing their inventories ahead of Ramadan.
Local production is set to start soon to cover 90 percent of domestic demand, Ashmawy added on Sada El-Balad satellite channel.
The recent disruption in Egypt's sugar market is not the first this year.
In March 2023 Egypt enforced a three-month ban on all types of sugar exports as a precautionary measure to secure sufficient sugar for domestic consumption.
This year, Egypt cultivated 620,000 feddans of sugar beets, adding nearly 10,000 feddans on 2022.
In 2022, Egypt's production of sugar beet and sugarcane surged by 17.3 percent to more than 30 million tons, up from 25.062 million tons a year earlier, according to a report by the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics.
Beets are planted in late March/early April and harvested in late September and October.
According to the OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2023-2032, Egypt is set to be Africa's largest sugar producer in Africa by 2032.
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