MED-Amin network

Egypt’s inflation dropped for a third consecutive month in December, a trend that may be halted by another round of devaluation in the coming weeks.
Consumer prices in urban areas of the country grew 33.7 per cent year-on-year last month, down from 34.6 per cent in November and 35.8 per cent in October.
It was the slowest rate since May, according to data published by the country’s statistics agency, Capmas, on Wednesday.
Inflation hit a record 38 per cent last September.

Each April, at the start of the wheat harvest, there is a nearly ritualistic scene. Each of the three presidents who have ruled over Egypt play the same role. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Mohamed Morsi, Hosni Mubarak each pose before a camera, a field of “yellow gold” in the background, to officiate the start of the harvest season in desert reclamation projects. 

Egypt recently bought 240,000 tons of wheat from Russia directly, as the government continues to work on plans to avert a food crisis and preserve local supplies.

Expecting Ukraine war-induced wheat supply problems, Egypt is experimenting with using sweet potatoes in bread, amid hopes that the new measure will significantly reduce wheat imports.

Perceiving a threat to its strategic wheat reserves following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, the Egyptian government initially planned to turn to local production to close the gap, though it would later resort to additional wheat imports from the war-inflated export markets.

At an agricultural storage complex in the Egyptian city of Banha, Ahmed Nasser watches truck after truck offload freshly-threshed grain from the surrounding Nile Delta. Cut off from much of the Black Sea wheat it depended on by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Egypt, often the world's biggest importer, is straining to extract whatever it can from a local harvest, now in full flow.

Egypt sealed deals to purchase 350,000 tons of wheat, the majority of which will come from Europe, following a tender launched on Monday by the General Authority for Supply Commodities, the Supply Ministry agency responsible for importing the wheat that supplies bakeries across the country with flour as part of the subsidy system.

Egypt is hoping that a new plan to rely on its own wheat reserves and local production will be enough to cover domestic consumption of the vital grain until 2023.
Facing difficulties in importing wheat because of the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine - the two countries are the largest sources of wheat for Egypt - the government now has to increase dependence on local wheat. 
To achieve that goal, Egypt’s plan for self-sufficiency in 2022 is twofold. 

Egypt allocated LE100 million to conduct innovative research to increase the productivity of wheat crops, produce new strains of the rice crop and increase its production, Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research Khaled Abdel Ghaffar announced Monday morning, at the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM), hosted by Benin virtually.

Egypt’s wheat imports rose by more than a million metric tons in 2023, data seen by Reuters shows, with traders citing a dip in global prices from highs reached after Russia invaded Ukraine.
One of the world’s top wheat importers, Egypt uses the grain it buys for heavily subsidised bread available to more than two thirds of the North African nation’s 105 million population, Reuters reports.

As the Russian war on Ukraine rages on, Egypt has bought 3.5 million tons of wheat from local farmers since the start of the current fiscal year that began in July.
In a statement to Al-Monitor, Egyptian Minister of Supply and Internal Trade Ali Moselhi said that the local wheat purchase season ended with the purchase of a total amount of 3.5 million tons from farmers who were not affected to a large extent by the coronavirus pandemic, noting that Egypt’s strategic wheat reserves cover about 6.3 months.

Cairo halted tenders after the steep rise in prices that followed the outbreak of war in Europe, but since June it has locked in new large quantities that also show which countries are filling the gap left by Ukraine.

Egypt is paying the price of disruption to vital wheat imports and sharply rising import costs due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, prompting Cairo to take new measures to secure adequate reserves.
The disruption has raised fears that Egypt could face a shortage of flour needed for the subsidised bread that is available to more than 70 million of the country's 103 million population.

CAIRO — The Egyptian government asked the World Bank in late May to obtain $500 million to finance the Emergency Food Security and Resilience Support Program, which is aimed at managing Egypt’s needs for imported wheat in light of the ongoing repercussions of the Russian war in Ukraine on global markets.

The world’s largest wheat importer, Egypt has traditionally gone to great lengths to secure enough wheat to make bread — a staple for most of the country’s 103 million people.
About 71 million Egyptians rely on cheap bread under a state subsidised food card system.

Egypt’s strategic wheat reserves will be depleted in the coming 2.6 months, stated Cabinet Spokesperson, Nader Saad, on 4 April in an official Facebook statement. The news comes in context to the global wheat shortages caused by the Russian invasion on Ukraine, as Egypt’s wheat supply was hit severely considering Russia and Ukraine provided the […]

Egypt's Ministry of Trade and Industry has issued a decree suspending the export of gravel and mixed beans, lentils, wheat, flour of all kinds, and pasta for three months from 11 March, according to a copy of the document obtained by the Masrawy news portal.