Egypt cancels wheat tender due to insufficient offers

Egypt cancelled on Friday a wheat tender offered the previous day, after being offered unsatisfactory prices by only four traders, the deputy head of the General Authority for Supply Commodities (GASC) told state-owned news agency MENA.

GASC offered an international tender on Thursday to buy wheat to be shipped in the period from 2-11 March, the state grain buyer’s deputy head Mamdouh Abdel-Fattah said.

Traders had told Reuters that they had boycotted Egypt’s tender following the rejection of a 63,000-tonne French wheat shipment due to concerns about a high percentage of ergot fungus.

While traders claimed in comments to Reuters that the shipment was below the international ergot level of 0.05 percent, Egyptian authorities insist that the shipment contained an unacceptable range of 0.07 to 0.09 percent.

Egypt, a major player in the international wheat market, imports around 10 million tonnes of wheat annually through both state and private sector buyers.

source: MENA