CAIRO: The price of pita bread (shami) and artisan bread (fino) increased by 100 percent due to a global increase in the price of wheat.
Wheat prices surged from $109 to $334 dollars a ton, said Mohamed Reda, general manager of the Egyptian Industrial Chamber of Grains, to Daily News Egypt.
International wheat prices increased due to the shortage of American and Russian wheat production, Reda explained, denying reports by Al-Masry Al-Youm that bread prices soared because the Ministry of Social Solidarity stopped subsidizing wheat.
There will be no shortage of bread, stressed Reda, referring to the Chairman of the Egyptian Industrial Chamber of Grains Kamal Omarah, who said that the chamber has an excess supply of wheat to be used to produce bread.
There are about 1.2 billion tons of local wheat and 492,000 tons of imported wheat in the Chamber s storage, which would be enough to supply the Egyptian market with bread for about two-and-a-half months.