June 22 (SeeNews) - The Bulgarian government sees no need at present to proceed with earlier plans to buy local grain for 1.1 billion levs (591.7 million/562.4 million euro) in the context of the war in Ukraine, as this year's wheat crop is expected to be very good, agriculture minister Ivan Ivanov said.
About six million tonnes of wheat of good quality are expected to be harvested this summer in Bulgaria, with a large part of the crop to be destined for export, Ivanov said in an interview with private television channel bTV on Sunday.
The earmarked funds are held in deposit at the Bulgarian National Bank, with cabinet yet to decide on how to reallocate them, Ivanov added.
In March, in the early weeks of the war in Ukraine, Bulgaria's government announced plans to top up the country's food reserves and to guarantee future supply under the perceived threat of a shar drop in grain supply from Ukraine - one of the world's top grain producers.
In April, the agriculture minister said that the state would buy out 750,000 tonnes of milling wheat and 325,000 tonnes of sunflower seed from local growers on the Sofia Commodity Exchange.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)