CAIRO, April 17 (Reuters) - Egypt's current wheat reserves dropped to 1.740 million tonnes, enough to last 71 days, it said in a statement on Wednesday.

Expected foreign contracts for wheat will add 120,000 tonnes, raising the expected wheat reserves to 1.860, enough to last 75 days, it added.

The world's biggest wheat importer is struggling to ensure supply as it goes through an economic and political crisis that have made it harder to arrange payments for wheat imports. On April 3 wheat reserves stood at 2 million tonnes.

Egypt needs around 9 million tonnes of wheat for its subsidised bread programme and imports around 10 million tonnes a year.

Reserves and expected contracts of oil have reached 101,000 tonnes, enough to last until the end of June, the statement also said.

A weakening Egyptian pound has pushed up the cost of wheat imports, paid for in dollars. The pound has lost around a tenth of its value this year and the country's foreign reserves fell to a critical low of $13.4 billion, not enough to cover three months of imports.

Food supply is a politically-sensitive issue in Egypt, where rising food prices are being passed on to struggling consumers and shortages have provoked unrest in the past. (Reporting by Asma Alsharif; editing by James Jukwey)