Egypt’s GASC Plans To Purchase Polish Wheat

Egypt, the world’s biggest wheat importer, has added Poland as a potential supplier of the crop, the country’s main government wheat buyer said on Sunday.

“Poland has become one of the source countries from which we will seek wheat. Polish wheat is equal in quality to German wheat,” Nomani Nomani, vice chairman of the General Authority for Supply Commodities (GASC), told Reuters.

Egypt consumes around 14 million tonnes of wheat annually and imports around half of that amount.

Since the start of the 2011/12 fiscal year on July 1, GASC’s purchases have been dominated by Black Sea origin wheat.

GASC has purchased 3.24 million tonnes of Russian wheat, 180,000 tonnes of Romanian wheat, 360,000 tonnes of Ukrainian wheat, 60,000 tonnes of Russian, Ukraine or Kazakh wheat at the seller’s option and 60,000 tonnes of Russian or Kazakh wheat at the seller’s option since the beginning of July, according to Reuters. 

It also bought 300,000 tonnes of French wheat and 300,000 tonnes of Argentine wheat as well as 530,000 tonnes of U.S. soft red winter wheat and 60,000 tonnes of Canadian wheat.

In the fiscal year that ended on June 30, 2011, GASC purchased some 5.58 million tonnes of French, U.S., Canadian, Australian and Argentine wheat.