Egypt aims to raise local wheat production to 3.5 mn feddans this season, up slightly from 3.4 mn feddans last year, Reuters reports, citing an Agriculture Ministry official. Some 900k feddans have been planted since the start of the season in mid-November. The harvest will begin in mid-April 2021. Egypt, the world’s largest importer of wheat, is seeking to reduce its reliance on imports, raising domestic production this year and stockpiling imports in response to fears over food security caused by the pandemic.

Other things we’re keeping an eye on this morning:

• Elsewedy’s EgyTech landed a EGP 193 mn contract to provide the fiber optic cables for the Delta regional control center’s heavy use electricity grid.
• Raya Holding will invest EGP 50 mn to begin manufacturing TVs through Haier Raya Electric, a home appliances JV with Chinese firm Haier Electric.
• Ceramics manufacturers have reached a preliminary debt restructuring agreement with the Oil Ministry to pay outstanding gas bills over 10-15 years with 3% interest, head of the Egyptian Federation for Investors Associations said.
• Japan’s Hitachi ABB will install reactive power compensators in the national power grid for the first time in Owainat’s main transformer station, in an EGP 431 project.
• Fifty exporters have received EGP 1.1 bn of overdue export subsidies since the ministry allowed immediate payments to companies that want to receive their arrears in a single lump-sum rather than in installments.