By: Nader Hassan

Egypt's Minister of Supply Mohamed Abu Shady has said that his ministry aims to build construct and operate at least one bakery that produces one million loaves of bread every day in every Egyptian governorate.

"We must develop the current (subsidised) bread system," the minister said.

The ministry wants to execute this plan within the first six months of 2014. 

Egypt sells its subsidised bread at 5 piasters per loaf. Millions of Egyptians, a quarter of which live below the poverty line, depend on subsidised bread on a daily basis.

The government spends around 20 billion Egyptian pounds on subsidising food commodities every year, yet it seeks to cut down the subsidy in order to decrease the budget deficit.

The government will work on merging several small bakeries into one large bakery that produces one million subsidised loaves per day.

The local municipalities in each city will be responsible for providing land plots to bakery owners in order to establish the new bakeries.

Abu Shady said the ministry will provide the required funding for these bakeries through giving guarantees for bank loans or loans from the Social Fund for Development. It will also provide subsidised wheat.

About 60 percent of all bakeries have agreed to be part of this new system.

Egypt produces 250-270 million subsidised loaves every day, the minister said last November.