Iraq will need to import between 2.5 and 3.0 million tonnes of wheat in 2008, up from 2.1 million tonnes last year, and pass an extra budget to cover the higher cost, Iraq's trade minister said on Friday. He added that Iraq's wheat harvest could reach last year's 1.5 million tonnes.
"We need around 3 million tonnes of wheat imports but it doesn't have to be necessarily that amount...It could be 2.5 million tonnes," Abdul Falah al-Sudani told Reuters in an interview in Amman. But unlike political wrangling over budget allocations that held up wheat purchases late last year, the government would pass a budget annex to cover the steep rise in the commodity import bill due to record global market prices, Sudani said.
"The price increases that have happened in foodstuffs are large..if the reality is that prices have gone up and the needs exist then there is no question we have to allocate funds. We need to feed the Iraqi people," Sudani said.
Record oil prices have also improved Iraq's revenues. Sudani said the country's priority was to maintain food rations under a state run distribution system that a majority of the country's 28 million population depend for their needs.