(AFP Photo )
Egypt has purchased 180,000 tonnes of Russian and Romanian wheat with an average price of $200 per tonne, Minister of Supply and Internal Trade Khaled Hanafy announced Saturday.
Hanafy added that the strategic wheat stock is sufficient until early January of 2016.
Around 60,000 tonnes were imported from Russia, while the remaining 120,000 tonnes will come from Romania. The imported wheat will be delivered over 11 days starting from 11 July.
The wheat was bought through an international tender and will be used for producing subsidised bread, the ministry highlighted.
Earlier this month, Tarek Hassanein, head of the Grain Industry Chamber at the Federation of Egyptian Industries (FEI), told Daily News Egypt the decline in imported wheat this year was due to the abundant supply of wheat from local farmers. He added that the wheat production increased by 1m tonnes this year compared to last year.
The ministry received 5m tonnes of wheat from farmers in various governorates and reduced the amount of imported wheat from abroad to 4.6m tonnes, compared to 6.4m tonnes last year.
Hanafy visited Alexandria on Saturday to launch a port jetty and a grains’ silo that were modernised in the Alexandria port. The development and modernisation of the silos cost approximately EGP 60m, the minister said.
The minister added that EGP 20m were spent on developing the silos’ equipments and installing two lines to receive wheat and grain imported to the port. The remaining EGP 40m were allocated for the development of the port jetty.
