CASABLANCA: French wheat exporters will supply Morocco with two thirds of its soft wheat needs, or 3.5 million metric tons, in the 2025-2026 season, Philippe Heusele, international head at French grain industry group Intercereales, said on Tuesday.
Morocco is expected to import 5.5 million tons of soft wheat, its main staple, this market year from June to the end of May 2026, according to estimates by Moroccan traders and French grains association Synacomex.
Morocco has reported below-average harvests in recent years because of drought. This season it reported a soft wheat harvest of 2.4 million tons.
Despite the weak domestic harvest, stockpiles remain at a “comfortable level,” covering more than three months of industrial millers’ needs, said Abdelkader Alaoui, president of the FNM industrial milling federation.
Moroccan traders attending an Intercereales conference in Casablanca see the French harvest as best positioned, given its availability and proximity to Moroccan ports compared with other origins such as the Black Sea region and Argentina.
“We are also looking at Russian, German and Polish wheat as well as Argentina, where prices are interesting,” said Omar Yacoubi, head of FNCL, Morocco’s grain traders federation.
From June to September, Morocco imported 1.5 million tons of soft wheat, including 996,368 tons from France, followed by the United States (94,688 tons), Russia (85,499 tons) and Lithuania (63,000 tons), FNCL data shows.
France to supply two thirds of Morocco’s soft wheat needs, industry group says
https://arab.news/j3xzn
France to supply two thirds of Morocco’s soft wheat needs, industry group says
- Morocco is expected to import 5.5 million tons of soft wheat
- Morocco has reported below-average harvests in recent years because of drought
Syrian refugee returns set to slow as donor support fades
- Some aid officials say Syria is one of the first crises to be hit by aid funding cuts because the end of the war means it no longer counts as an emergency, eligible for priority funding
GENEVA: More than 3 million Syrians have returned home since the collapse of Bashar Assad’s rule a year ago but a decline in global funding could deter others, the UN refugee agency said on Monday.
Some 1.2 million refugees in addition to 1.9 million internally displaced people have gone back home following the civil war that ended with Assad’s overthrow, but millions more are yet to return, according to UNHCR.
The agency said much more support was needed to ensure the trend continues.
“Syrians are ready to rebuild – the question is whether the world is ready to help them do it,” said UNHCR head Filippo Grandi. Over 5 million refugees remain outside Syria’s borders, mostly in neighboring countries like Jordan and Lebanon.
RISK OF REVERSALS
Grandi told donors in Geneva last week that there was a risk that those Syrians who are returning might even reverse their course and come back to host states.
“Returns continue in fairly large numbers but unless we step up broader efforts, the risk of (reversals) is very real,” he said.
Overall, Syria’s $3.19 billion humanitarian response is 29 percent funded this year, according to UN data, at a time when donors like the United States and others are making major cuts to foreign aid across the board.
The World Health Organization sees a gap emerging as aid money drops off before national systems can take over.
As of last month, only 58 percent of hospitals were fully functional and some are suffering power outages, affecting cold-chain storage for vaccines.
“Returnees are coming back to areas where medicines, staff and infrastructure are limited – adding pressure to already thin services,” Christina Bethke, Acting WHO Representative in Syria, told reporters.
The slow pace of removing unexploded ordnance is also a major obstacle to recovery, said the aid group Humanity & Inclusion, which reported over 1,500 deaths and injuries in the last year. Such efforts are just 13 percent funded, it said.
Some aid officials say Syria is one of the first crises to be hit by aid funding cuts because the end of the war means it no longer counts as an emergency, eligible for priority funding.
Others may have held back as they wait to see if authorities under President Ahmed Al-Sharaa make good on promises of reform and accountability, including for massacres of the Alawite minority in March, they say.
