Serbia agrees to sell wheat to Egypt

CAIRO - 21 July 2022: Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic announced his country's approval to sell grain and wheat to Egypt, the Italian Nova news agency reported.

 

This comes after Serbia recently obtained a certificate for exporting wheat, apples, and “beef as well,” according to the country’s president.

 

During a joint press conference with President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi in Belgrade, Vucic said the two countries are making efforts to reach a free trade agreement by the end of the year and that he discussed cooperation in the health sector.

 

The Serbian president hopes, according to what was reported by the Italian Agency, to reopen the direct airline with Cairo, which was canceled due to Corona, along with the current chartered flights to Egyptian locations.

 

 

Earlier in July, Egypt’s Minister of Supply, Ali Meselhi announced that Egypt’s strategic reserve of wheat became sufficient for 7 months thanks to the shipments that were recently purchased from abroad.

 

 

The Minister added that sugar stock is sufficient for the need for domestic consumption for 7.8 months, noting that this will be followed by the harvest season of the beet and sugarcane crops.

 

 

 

The Egyptian General Authority for Supply Commodities (GASC) said last week that it had offered an international tender to purchase 815,000 tons of wheat that would be shipped over August, September and October 2022.

 

 

 

Moselhi, said that Egypt had contracted to buy 180,000 tons of wheat from India, which is less than what was previously agreed upon (500,000 tons).

 

 

 

He added that about 3.920 million tons of local wheat have been received from the farmers so far, with a rise between 11 percent and 12 percent compared to the last year.

 

 

 

French Ambassador to Cairo Marc Barety told the press that his country is a producer of wheat and that it prioritizes exporting the crop to Egypt in the current harvest season.

 

 

 

Egypt is currently suffering from a crisis of wheat supply from the conflicting Russia and Ukraine, the two biggest wheat importers to Egypt. So, the government is targeting to increase the area of the wheat crops by 1.5 million feddans over the next three years in accordance with a new study conducted by the Egyptian Cabinet's Information and Decision Support Center (IDSC).