CAIRO-Egypt has enough strategic reserves of wheat to meet domestic consumption needs for the next four months, a senior Government official told the local media later Friday. Ahmed el-Rakkaibi, head of the Holding Company for Food Industries said that there were 119,000 tonnes of wheat already in the country, the most populous in the Arab world. That quantity, combined with unspecified amounts Egypt has contracted for, can meet its needs to the second week of December, el-Rakkaibi said. Meanwhile, the State-run General Authority for Supply Commodities (GASC) purchased a 60,000-tonne consignment of Canadian wheat from Nidera Inc. at $280 a tonne, Vice Chairman Nomani Nomani said in Cairo. GASC-purchased wheat is the main source for subsidised flour which the Government uses to make bread for the urban poor. Nomani said that the GASC has bought two cargoes of French grain of equal size from Glencore International AG for $289.78 a tonne and $291.32 a tonne and a third from Granit, also at $291.32. The purchase was the authority's first of Canadian wheat in a year, according to Bloomberg. Russia, which supplied more than half of Egypt's wheat imports in the fiscal year that ended in June, was dropped from GASC's list of approved sources after banning grain exports from Aug. 15 until Dec. 31. Kazakhstan and Romania also were removed. The exclusion is temporary. Approved suppliers include Argentina, Australia, the UK and the US as well as Canada and France. The wheat purchased today is free on board and for shipment between Sept. 16 and Sept. 30. The authority buys between 5 million and 6 million tonnes of wheat a year on behalf of the Government via international tenders for use in a subsidised bread programme. Local production is insufficient to meet demand in the Arab world's most populous nation, which has about 80 million people. Russia's temporary ban on grain exports is stirring both political and economic anxiety in Egypt, the world's largest wheat importer where half of the 80 million residents rely on subsidised bread to survive. Russia, which supplies more than 50 per cent of Egypt's wheat imports, had announced a temporary ban on grain exports earlier this month because of a drought. In addition, Ukraine on Tuesday said it plans to halve grain exports for the rest of the year. The Russian move predictably sent global grain prices higher.
