A number of members of Egyptian Parliament have summed up the causes of current sugar crisis, with the sugar kilo is now being sold at the price of EGP10 in some areas. In the fact that a number of traders have completely monopolized locally manufactured sugar and that they have totally dominated the market in the absence of oversight. A further cause of sugar crisis is the decline in planted sugar beet and sugarcane areas, due to the fact that the authorities have not agreed to increase the import price of these two crops by EGP 100 per ton. Finally, lack of attention paid by the Ministry of Agriculture to developing higher-quality strains of crops is one of the main causes of decline in yield per acre.
Hisham Al-Shaina, the head of the Parliament’s Agriculture Committee, has urged both President Abdul-Fattah El-Sisi and Prime Minister to examine request submitted to the Economic Group in relation to increasing the import price of sugar beet and sugarcane crops by EGP 100 per ton. As the farmers have been reluctant to plant those crops given that they would not make profit.
Al-Shaina added, in his press statements, “One of the true causes of sugar soaring prices in addition to traders’ monopoly is the lack of support provided by the Ministry of Agriculture, which is demonstrated by the decline in planted sugarcane areas in the Upper Egypt governorates in order to plant other crops. Moreover, the state has continued to marginalise the farmers even if the president has paid due attention in all his meetings to agriculture, the farmer’s concerns and easing the burdens on this segment of Egyptian society.”
For his part, Raef Temarz, Under-Secretary of the Parliament’s Agriculture on Committee, said that he would submit a request for briefing to the Ministers of Supply and Agriculture in relation to sugar crisis and the fact that the sugar kilo is now being sold at the price of EGP10 in some areas.
