Exclusive: Egypt defers payments for wheat imports amid dollar crunch – Reuters

Exclusive: Egypt defers payments for wheat imports amid dollar crunch – Reuters

CAIRO, May 25 (Reuters) - Egypt has deferred payments for its large wheat purchases, in some cases by months, according to a government official and traders, as the country grapples with a shortage of hard currency.

Egypt is one of the world's biggest wheat importers and uses the purchases to make heavily subsidised bread, a politically sensitive benefit available to tens of millions of people.

Most deferred payment cargoes have been shipped and unloaded without interruption so far and Egypt's state wheat reserves used to make subsidized bread have not been impacted.