PARIS - Egypt's state wheat buyer GASC, the world's largest wheat buyer, asked France to be more competitive on price and quality during a visit last week, the head of the body promoting French cereals abroad has said. The body also noted during its five-day visit France's strategic need to ship wheat from two ports, Francois Gatel, the head of France Export Cereales (FCE), which invited the GASC, told Reuters in an interview on Monday. GASC's vice-chairman Nomani Nomani visited facilities at Rouen, Europe's largest port for cereal exports, a grain stocker and a mill and met industry and government officials such as FranceAgriMer. "We tried to be educational, the Egyptians have identified what we have shown them (how shipments work)," he said. "They, in turn, (the GASC) insisted on the necessity (for France) to be competitive on price and quality," Gatel said. Egypt's international tenders have been a major issue for the global wheat trade since last year, and GASC has tightened the terms it applies after controversy last year over the quality of cargoes of Russian wheat. . The French trade has been concerned about a new requirement to load 60,000-tonne shipments to Egypt at a single port -- effectively ruling out France's leading grains port of Rouen, which is too shallow to fully load such volumes. "No decisions were taken because this was not the purpose of the trip," Gatel said. "This was a visit for work purposes not negotiations," he added, confirming what sources close to the situation told Reuters earlier this week. One source said on Friday the decision was up to a GASC committee which has sovereign authority in its decisions. "Egypt confirmed it needed to diversify the origin of its wheat imports," he said. "Egypt said French wheat was well adapted to the needs of Egyptian millers," he added. GASC bought a total of around 780,000 tonnes of wheat in the past three tenders. Less than ten per cent was won by France, while 85 per cent will be supplied by Russia, a preference notably explained by the one-port rule, more aggressive offers from Russia and an unfavourable euro-dollar exchange rate. News on Monday that Egypt's Venus International planned to buy one million tonnes of Kazakh wheat in the 12 months starting in March, means even more competition between exporting countries. Egypt, which imports large amounts of wheat for its subsidised bread programme, can afford to be selective at the moment amid abundant global wheat stocks.
