Currency drop and high prices lowers Egypt's wheat import

Egypt reduced its import of wheat during the first quarter of 2025, on an annual basis, in the light of the high world prices and the decline in the local currency exchange rate against the dollar, according to a government document seen by the “East”. The country’s external wheat purchases fell by about 3% to 3.2 million tonnes in the period from January to March this year, compared to 3.3 million tonnes in the same period last year. However, the Egyptian Prime Minister said on Wednesday that his country was starting to take proactive measures in dealing with the World Trade War by hedging the purchase of strategic goods, suggesting that his government began the wheat commodity after increasing its price locally to secure the largest supply rate. The trade war fell after US President Donald Trump suspended high customs on dozens of countries, with China’s exception. Hisham Suleiman, director of the company “Medistar” for trading and importing grains, is attributed in an interview with “Al -Sharq” the reasons for the decline in “the high prices of wheat worldwide, especially the Russian at the end of this quarter compared to last year”, where the price of the tonnes ranged between 260 dollars. Egypt is an important market for Russia’s wheat, one of the largest exporters in the world. The effect of the pound exchange rate, Suleiman Ezza, also the decline in the imported quantities to the fall in the exchange rate of the pound against the dollar, as the average local exchange rate in the country recorded 50.40 pounds per dollar during the first three months of this year, compared to 30.91 pounds in the same quarter of 2024. The Egyptian Ministry of Agriculture aims to produce 10 million tonnes of wheat locally this year, of the cultivation of 3.1 million hectares of wheat this season, which will begin the harvesting season on April 15. While the Ministry of Supply wants to receive approximately 4 million tonnes of local wheat this year, at a price of 2200 pounds for Ardab. The wheat transplant season began in Egypt in the middle of the November; It continued until the end of January, while the harvest season continues until mid -July. The total number of Egypt imports last year has a leap into the import of Egypt, to the highest level in recent years, to 14.2 million tonnes, compared to 10.8 million tonnes in 2023, an increase of 31%, due to the abundance of the dollar mainly, especially per tonne per ton. In a surprising step during December 2024, Egypt transferred the responsibility of wheat purchases of the Supply Commodities Authority, which is the usual government agency for the purchase of grains, transferred to the ‘future of Egypt’ of the military as an exclusive importer. The announcement officially came for the first time through an official letter from the Egyptian minister of provision to the Russian Minister of Agriculture.