Egypt government to raise sugar production

Egypt's government plans to raise its sugar production to two million tonnes from 1.1 million tonnes to meet the required quantities of subsidised sugar, reported the state-run Al-Ahram daily newspaper on Sunday.

Khaled Hanafy, the minister of supply and internal trade, told Al-Ahram that the plan is to buy new machinery and add new production lines to the Egyptian Sugar and Integrated Industries Company (ESIIC) at a cost of LE400 million.

Currently, sugar supplied by the government through the food subsidy system amounts to 1.5 million tonnes per year. The government imports around 350,000 tonnes of raw sugar from Brazil in an attempt to fulfill the gap between the amount produced and consumed.

Optimistic plan

Ahmed El-Rakaybi, former head of ESIIC, told Ahram Online that each tonne of sugar is produced from 10 tonnes of sugarcanes. Since each feddan produces around 40 tonnes of sugarcane, to achieve this plan requires planting 500,000 feddans with sugarcanes.

Currently, sugarcane takes up to 47.7 percent of the total farmed area nationwide at 325,700 feddans.

In addition, raising the area cultivated by sugarcane requires more irrigation water where each feddan consumes 8,000 tonnes of water, added El-Rakaybi.