Saudi Arabia is expected to rely completely on imported wheat within two years, newly appointed Minister of Agriculture Waleed Al-Kuraiji said.
According to the minister, the country's wheat import has increased to 3 million tonnes this year, Saudi Gazette reported.
Saudi produced almost 2 million tons of wheat in 2008 and then started decreasing the domestic production due to lack of water resources. In 2008, the country imported 300,000 tonnes of wheat.
Waleed Al-Kuraiji was quoted by Saudi Gazette as saying: "the Kingdom has been undergoing a strategic move for the past seven years to conserve water, therefore we head to international markets to import products that are water consuming, on top of which is wheat."
Since 2008, it has decreased domestic production of wheat by 12.5% annually, making the country the world's sixth-largest wheat importer.
However, the minister said that the government has taken measures and created a year worth of stock for wheat rather than the current six month stock.
