Saudi Arabia to end domestic wheat purchase

Jedda

SAUDI Arabia will stop buying domestically grown wheat in two years' time and rely completely on imports of the grain, the water-short kingdom's new agriculture minister said on Wednesday. By investing tens of billions of dollars, the desert nation's output grew through the 1980s until it ironically became one of the world's largest wheat exporters.

But since a surge in global food prices in 2008, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states have looked abroad to nearby Sudan and other countries to secure food supplies through agricultural investment, including land acquisition.