Egypt looks further afield for wheat

Egypt looks further afield for wheat

CAIRO — Egypt’s Ministry of Supply announced Aug. 23 that the state grain buyer known as the General Authority for Supply Commodities signed a contract to purchase 240,000 tons of Russian wheat.

The Russian wheat cargos are scheduled to arrive between Sept. 20 and Nov. 10 to increase the country’s strategic stocks of imported wheat.

While Egypt has not officially announced the purchase price, Reuters on Aug. 23 quoted traders who believed it was $368 per ton.

In an Aug. 9 press statement, Egypt’s Minister of Supply and Internal Trade Ali al-Moselhi revealed that the country has imported about 1.8 million tons of wheat since the outbreak of the Ukrainian war in February.

A source at the Egyptian Ministry of Supply told Al-Monitor that the new Russian wheat shipment is very important, given that Russia was the largest exporter of wheat to Egypt over the past years

He added that the Egyptian government has succeeded in managing the wheat import crisis in the past six months by diversifying its import sources. The government has signed contracts for wheat from several countries, including France, Romania, Bulgaria and India, in the hope that the global situation would calm down. The source further stressed that the country’s strategic wheat reserve is sufficient for the next