CAIRO: Egypt’s main state wheat-buying entity has no financing problems for global wheat purchases and all letters of credit to suppliers have been opened or are being processed, it said yesterday.
European traders in France and Germany had been speculating that financial problems were causing delays to the opening of letters of credit and could be the reason Egypt’s General Authority for Supply Commodities (GASC) has been absent from the market in recent weeks.
The economy of Egypt, the world’s biggest wheat importer, has been crippled by social and political turmoil since Hosni Mubarak was ousted as president in early 2011 and it has been supported in recent months by funding from several Gulf Arab states.
“All the letters of credit have been opened and the remaining ones will be opened right after the Eid vacation,” Mamdouh Abdel Fattah, the GASC vice chairman, said by telephone.
Most of the Arab world will be on holiday this week when the Eid Al Adha festival starts.
“There are no financing problems. The reason we were absent from the market the past few weeks is because the prices were too high,” Abdel Fattah said.
“And the reason the tender was cancelled on Thursday is because we were surprised to find that the Russian and Romanian offers we got were $10 per tonne higher than prices announced on the Russian and Romanian screens.”
On Thursday GASC said it cancelled a tender in which it sought wheat for shipment between November 21 and 30 because prices were too high.
Reuters
