Tenders to import rice aimed at increasing supply

CAIRO - 12 March 2019: The General Authority for Supply Commodities (GASC) announced on Tuesday it will invite a third tender to import white short and medium grain rice with a broken percentage varying from 10 to 12 percent.

Offers, covering the technical and financial aspects, must be submitted by March 30 along with four samples. The size of each is 3 kilograms. One of them will be sent to Food Technology Research Institute affiliated with the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation to carry out a cooking test ensuring it matches the Egyptian consumer. Decisions will be based on the test’s results.

The minimum quantity to be supplied is 20,000 tons. The delivery dates are June 1 - 15, and June 16 - 30.

The offers must be coupled with unconditional bond in the value of $50,000 with GASC being the client.

In February, GASC signed contracts to import 68,000 tons accepting certain offers submitted in the second tender. Twenty thousand tons will be delivered on March 20 - April 20. Forty eight thousand tons will be delivered on April 1 - 30. The offers accepted in the first tender consisted of delivering 47,500 tons last month.

On Monday, Minister of Supply and Internal Trade Ali al-Meselhy stated that imported rice will be available at the ministry’s outlets for LE 9 per kilo in April, and that currently there are 46,000 tons of rice in Egypt.

Prices of rice have risen a bit recently because the size of lands cultivated in the crop decreased as per a decision by the government to rationalize the use of water.