Egypt's sugar factories have strategic reserves estimated at 900,000 tons, including about 5.4 billion EGP (U.S. $900 million) worth of domestic product produced this year. It is enough to meet the country's needs until the end of October, said Hassan Kamel, chairman of the Sugar and Complementary Industries' Company. Kamel said there were additional contracts being drawn up to import about 550,000 tons of sugar during the months of July and August to cover the needs of the country until the end of this year. He said sugar production in Egypt this year has increased by as much as 200,000 tons this year over 2010. Also, the yield of sugar has increased 24 percent; production of sugar from both cane and beet reached 2 million tons - the highest yield of sugar ever since Egypt began producing sugar; and the self-sufficiency ratio has increased to 4.80 percent compared to 71 percent last season. Reports confirmed that Egypt now occupies first place worldwide in sugar cane yield, an average of 50 tons per acre, and occupies an advanced rank among the biggest producers of beet sugar. The reports indicated that the increase in sugar production this year was due to the increase of land given to grow sugar beet crops, which amounted to 362,000 acres and produced about 4.7 million tons of beets in addition to the high proportion of sugar cane output, which lead to sugar factories working at full capacity for 150 days. Also, a new sugar factory belonging to Nile Sugar was opened in Nubariya. The reports said the annual consumption of sugar in Egypt is estimated at 7.2 million tons, thus reducing the current gap of sugar to 709,000 tons of sugar instead of one million tons in the previous year. This gap is being filled by importing sugar from abroad.
