* Agmin: Soft wheat imports wrapped up
* Morocco's import season usually ends in May
* Cereals harvest seen up 18 percent versus 2010
(Recasts with minister's comments, pvs RABAT)
By Barbara Lewis
MEKNES, Morocco, April 26 (Reuters) - The Moroccan government has wrapped up its soft wheat imports a month ahead of schedule and will rely on a local cereals harvest it expects to rise by 18 percent, its top farming official said on Tuesday.
Speaking on the sidelines of a farming conference in the central city of Meknes, Agriculture Minister Aziz Akhennouch also told Reuters the agriculture-reliant economy "could add a few points of extra growth", after the announcement of a cereals harvest forecast of 8.8 million tonnes this year.
"It's a very good year. We have had good weather conditions," said Akhennouch, who declined to give a breakdown per cereal variety for the harvest forecast.
The forecast exceeds the 7.46 million tonnes of cereals harvested last year and is also above the current budget's crop forecast.
But since the majority of wheat-planted areas are small properties owned by farmers who use the harvest for their own subsistence, only 1.8 million tonnes of last year's harvest went to the market, according to official statistics.
Morocco ended up importing 5.36 million tonnes of cereals in the ten months to end-March, which is 76 percent above the same period in 2010. Morocco's grain import season starts in June of each year and ends in May the following year.
Asked about a compensation system for soft wheat importers, Akhennouch said: "The import season is over. We're going to turn to our own production."
The state grains agency ONICL has extended until end-April a compensation system for importers of soft milling wheat to keep supplies stable after a surge in grain prices.
The government, which subsidises flour, introduced the system in January to give importers compensation if prices of imported milling soft wheat exceed 2,600 dirhams ($334.6) per tonne.
Morocco's soft milling wheat imports jumped to 3.02 million tonnes in the ten months to end-March from 1.07 million tonnes a year earlier.
French suppliers accounted for 1.86 million tonnes of ONICL's soft wheat buys with U.S. origins coming a distant second with 0.37 million tonnes.
GROWTH IMPACT
In remarks the official MAP news agency carried earlier on Tuesday, Akhennouch said the 8.8 million tonnes forecast for the cereals harvest this year was valid "as of today" unless "exceptional" developments occur.
Cereal farmers are hoping for dry weather in the weeks that precede the start of the harvest in June.
The 2011 budget, predicting an economic growth of 5 percent, was based on a cereals harvest of 7 million tonnes.
At 8.8 million tonnes, the harvest forecast is good news for an economy where agriculture is the biggest employer.
"(The harvest forecast) could add a few points of extra growth," Akhennouch said.
A finance ministry official estimated at 0.5 percent the extra GDP growth to be gained from the differential between Akhennouch's department harvest forecast and the crop forecast used as a basis for the 2011 budget.
The state's High Planning Commission (HCP) last month said Morocco's economy would grow by 4.6 percent in 2011 based on what it described then as a "realistic" forecast of a cereals harvest of 7 million tonnes.
A harvest of 9 million tonnes will be needed to enable the North African country to post economic growth of 5.1 percent, it added. HCP estimated the $90 billion economy to have gained 3.3 percent in 2010 versus 4.9 percent in 2009. (Writing by Souhail Karam; Editing by Anthony Barker)