Egypt state grain buyer, the General Authority for Supply Commodities (GASC) bought 180,000 tonnes of French, Romanian and Russian wheat in a tender for shipment on November 21- 30, gasc.gov.eg informs.
“Of that total, GASC bought 60,000 tonnes of French wheat from Soufflet, 60,000 tonnes of Romanian wheat from Nidera and 60,000 tonnes of Russian wheat from Olam”, Mamdouh Abdel Fattah, vice chairman of the state grain buyer said.
The wheat was bought at an average price of USD 255.16 a tonne, cost and freight.
According to traders, 60,000 tonnes of Romanian wheat from Nidera were acquired at USD 246.75 a tonne free-on-board (fob) and USD 11.87 a tonne freight. Another 60,000 tonnes of French wheat from Soufflet were acquired at USD 234.44 a tonne fob and USD 15.98 a tonne freight and 60,000 tonnes of Russian wheat from Olam, at USD 246 a tonne fob and USD 10.43 a tonne freight.
Egypt has bought 1.895 million tonnes of wheat on the international market since July 1, the start of the fiscal year. Egypt purchased 5.46 million tonnes of wheat from abroad in the 2013-2014 fiscal year in addition to 3.7 million tonnes of local wheat.
Early this September, Egypt bought other 60,000 tonnes of Romanian wheat from Bunge at an average price of USD 258.89 a tonne on a cost and freight basis.
Supply Minister Khaled Hanafi has said Egypt aimed to cut its state imports of wheat in the next year to between 4 million and 4.5 million tonnes provided reforms to the country’s bread subsidy programme continued to reduce consumption and waste.
The world’s top wheat importer has enough wheat reserves to last until the first week of March, GASC stated.