RABAT: Morocco expects its cereal harvest this year to jump to 9.7 million tonnes, including 5.2 million tonnes of soft wheat, up from 5.1 million in 2012, the agriculture minister Aziz Akhannouch said on Tuesday, quoted by the state news agency.
"Generous rainfalls have raised our crop to 5.2 million tonnes of soft wheat. It's a record," the minister said at the opening of an agriculture fair in the northern city of Meknes.
The country is recovering from drought which slashed its 2012 soft wheat harvest to 2.74 million tonnes, forcing the government to import massively during the last six months.
The rise in agricultural production would push up the GDP growth to 5.5 percent in 2013, according to the government forecasts.
But the majority of the wheat-planted areas are small properties owned by poor farmers who use the crop for their subsistence.
Only about a quarter of the annual harvest goes to the market, according to the official data.
Morocco has frozen the 17 percent import duty on soft wheat from October through April to ensure a regular supply of the commodity to the domestic market.
The grains state agency ONICL said last month, Morocco has imported 1.6 million tonnes of soft wheat since the import duty was frozen between Oct. 1 to the end of February.
ONICL issues a regular tender to buy durum wheat as the North African country has agreements with the United States and the European Union to import certain types of grain at preferential tariffs, with volumes depending on the size of the local harvest.
<Center><b><i>Copyright Reuters, 2013</b></i><br></center>
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