KHARTOUM: Sudan has raised domestic wheat prices to 13,500 Sudanese pounds per sack, up from 10,000 pounds, as the harvesting season starts, the prime minister’s office said on Sunday.

“What governs us in wheat pricing policy is that the price is not only fair but that it stimulates production, so that’s why we raised the purchase price,” Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok said on Twitter after inaugurating the harvest at the state-run Gezira farming project.

The estimated total area planted with wheat nationally in Sudan is 800,000 feddans (830,000 acres).

The country consumes about 1.9 million tonnes of wheat annually and produces 700,000 tonnes domestically, a senior official told Reuters last month. Sudan underwent a sharp currency devaluation in February.