Egypt to buy 1mn tonnes of Kazakh wheat

TRADE REOPEN: Kazakhstan lifted a wheat export ban in August. (Getty Images)

Egypt has agreed to buy a million tonnes of wheat from Kazakhstan to meet local market needs, and has discussed building silos to store Kazakh wheat on Egypt's north coast, state-owned Al-Ahram newspaper said on Saturday.

Al-Ahram said that Egyptian Trade Minister Rachid Mohamed Rachid had agreed in principle to the Kazakh deal in talks with President Nursultan Nazarbayev on Friday in Astana.

Egypt is one of the world's largest wheat importers. It bought at least 6.5 million tonnes of overseas-origin wheat in the 2007/2008 fiscal year, much of that from Russia, the United States and Kazakhstan.

The Egyptian newspaper did not say how much Egypt would pay for the Kazakh wheat, nor when the purchases would be made or whether the wheat would be bought through the government's main wheat-buying agency, GASC.

It added that Rachid and Nazarbayev had also discussed building silos to store Kazakh wheat on Egypt's Mediterranean coast to help Kazakhstan overcome problems it has transporting wheat to the Middle East.

The paper mentioned the northern ports of Damietta, Dekheila and Alexandria as possible sites for silos.

Egypt has so far bought over 1.48 million tonnes of wheat in the fiscal year beginning on July 1, none of it from Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan said this month it would lift a wheat export ban as planned on Sept. 1. The ban had been imposed in April. (Reuters)

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