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Egypt purchases wheat from France at higher prices New contract agrees to purchase of 60,000 tonnes of wheat from France at $189.2 per tonne, in comparison to $185.4 per tonne agreement last month
Minister of Supply Khaled Hanafy said on Friday that Egypt's wheat reserves will be sufficient until next July. In a statement, Hanafy said the increase in the stock came after Egypt made an agreement to purchase 60,000 tonnes of wheat from France at $189.2 per tonne, a higher price than the $185.4 per tonne that was agreed to last month. Egypt will begin receiving the supply of grain on 25 April and it will last for 10 days. The French contract is part of a bigger deal that the General Authority of Supply Commodities (GASC) signed in February. The deal included the purchasing of 300,000 tonnes of wheat from France, Romania, Ukraine, and Argentina following an international tender. The price of each tonne at that time was $185.4, with the importing process starting on 26 March and lasting for a period of 10 days. Egypt faces an impending crisis in its main food commodity after suppliers have boycotted a tender issued in February in protest of new import regulations. Tension between GASC and suppliers escalated after the authority rejected a 63,000 tonne import shipment of wheat from France in January, which contained a 0.05% trace of ergot fungi, considered a high level by the Ministry of Agriculture. Another French wheat shipment was rejected in December by the Central Administration of Agricultural Quarantine. Egypt is the world's top importer of wheat, with some 10m tonnes of imports each year. Along with the domestic production of wheat, this amount is used to provide subsidised bread to the country's population of over 90 million people.
