A landowner counts bags of wheat on a farm in the Nile Delta province of al-Sharqia, Egypt, Wednesday, May 11, 2022. Egypt is trying to increase its domestic wheat production as the war in Ukraine has strained international supplies of the grain.Amr Nabil/The Associated Press
Any agreements by Egypt’s government to purchase Indian wheat will not be affected by an export ban announced by New Delhi, Egypt’s supply minister said on Sunday.
“For India, we are talking with them on the basis of a government agreement. The ban exempts governments including the government of Egypt,” minister Ali Moselhy said at a news conference.
Egypt, the world’s largest wheat importer, faces a challenge securing wheat after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine further inflated high global prices and disrupted relatively cheap Black Sea supplies that Egypt had increasingly relied on.
Egypt has strategic reserves of wheat sufficient to cover its needs for four months, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said on Sunday in a televised news conference.
Egypt also has strategic reserves of vegetable oils to cover six months, he added.
It approved the import of Indian wheat, only for India to ban wheat exports on Saturday as a scorching heat wave curtailed output and domestic prices hit a record high.
However, India said it would still allow exports backed by letters of credit that were already issued, and sales to countries that request supplies “to meet their food security needs.”
Egypt’s government had agreed to buy half a million tonnes of wheat from India, Moselhy said in separate comments to Reuters on Sunday.
Egypt’s state grains buyer, the General Authority for Supply Commodities (GASC), typically purchases wheat through international tenders, but Moselhy told the news conference that the cabinet had approved direct purchases from countries or companies.
Egypt was in talks with India, Australia, Kazakhstan and France for such deals, he said.
Moselhy also said Egypt had turned away a ship which Ukraine’s embassy in Cairo has alleged was carrying wheat from Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine, on the grounds it did not have the proper paperwork.
“There were no shipping documents and there was no request for purchase from any private or government body. We refused its entry to Egyptian ports,” Moselhy said.
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