CAIRO: The new committee formed to set the local buying price for Egypt's wheat crop has recommended raising it to 450 Egyptian pounds ($50.68) per erdab (150 kg) from the current price of 420 pounds, the agriculture ministry spokesman said on Thursday.
A ministerial-level committee was established to determine the proper price for local wheat and whether the payment system should be reformed to minimise opportunities for corruption, the supply minister said on Wednesday.
"The committee formed from the ministries of supply and agriculture agreed on a price per erdab of wheat for the coming season of 450 pounds," agriculture ministry spokesman Hamid Abdel Dayim told Reuters. "This proposal will be sent to the minister before being passed on to the cabinet for approval," he said.
Egypt, the world's largest importer of the grain, pays high prices for local wheat to encourage farmers to grow it. Local traders, the middlemen who buy wheat from scores of small-landholders, have for years mixed cheaper imported wheat into local supplies and then claimed the state subsidies.
Egypt said it procured about 5 million tonnes of the crop this year from farmers but a parliament-led investigation suggested that as much as 2 million tonnes may have existed only on paper.
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