Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi has directed the government to ensure the continuous availability of the country’s strategic reserves of basic goods and to keep monitoring the market prices of such goods in order to meet the needs of citizens.
The directives to this effect came in the course of a meeting that President Sisi called on Sunday with Prime Minister Moustafa Madbouli, Home Trade and Supply Minister Ali Moselhi, Agriculture Mister el-Sayed el-Quseir and the Director-General of the Armed Forces National Service Authority Maj Gen Walid Abul-Magd, Presidency Spokesman Bassam Radi said.
The meeting was devoted to reviewing the status of strategic food commodities and monitoring their availability in markets nationwide, Spokesman Radi said.
In the directives he gave during the meeting, President Sisi emphasised that the aim of ensuring the continuous availability of the country’s basic food commodities and following up their market prices of such commodities is to meet the needs of citizens in sufficient quantities and at affordable prices, Spokesman Radi said.
The presidential directives followed presentations that participants in the meeting gave on the situation of the state’s strategic reserves of basic food commodities, especially including wheat, rice, sugar, oils, meat, poultry and fish.
The presentations affirmed that the provision of all such goods and commodities is problem-free in view of the state’s advance planning to ensure the continuity of strategic reserves for a period of not less than six months, the spokesman said.
The state’s efforts to increase the production of fertilisers were also reviewed in those presentations in light of the role of fertilisers as influential inputs for agricultural production and food security, spokesman Radi said, adding that reference was made in this respect to the keenness of the state on maximising the availability of agricultural production requirements.
In this regard, President Sisi called for consolidating the fertiliser production system in such a way that matches the state’s plans for agricultural production and the expansion of reclaimed lands horizontally and vertically with a view to covering the country’s food needs, Spokesman Radi said.
In another meeting also on Sunday, President Sisi followed up on the conclusions of a pilot project to plant short staple cotton in reclaimed lands.
Prime Minister Madbouli, Public Business Sector Minister Hisham Tawfik and Agriculture and Land Reclamation Minister el-Sayed el-Quseir, took part in the meeting, the presidency spokesman said.
During the meeting, President Sisi gave directives for the preparation of a thorough and integrated assessment of the experiment with all its aspects, to consider the feasibility of expanding short staple cotton cultivation in future, spokesman Radi said.
The President gave those directives following briefings on the results of an experiment to grow short staple cotton in East Owainat area of the New Valley governorate, and the relevant efforts to provide the seeds and the harvesting machinery.
Briefings on this pilot project also contained the results of analyses of the soil, water and climate conditions to determine the area’s suitability for panting that type of cotton, considered the more demanded larger used in the market; hence the need for fulfilling the requirements of mills, the spokesman said.
The presentations made on this point noted that such aspects would contribute to saving hard currency by reducing short staple cotton imports, Spokesman Radi said.
