ABU DHABI: Egypt's strategic wheat reserves are enough to last until the start of June, Supply Minister Khaled Hanafi said in a statement on Saturday.
Egypt's state-owned General Authority of Supply Commodities (GASC) bought 240,000 tonnes of wheat from France and Russia in a tender on Friday.
Egypt, the world's biggest importer of wheat, has seen its huge grain purchasing programme disrupted this year by conflicting quality rules from the supply ministry and the agriculture ministry on permitted levels of a fungus present in wheat worldwide called ergot.
A letter from the agriculture ministry was sent to suppliers this week prior to Friday's tender to reassure them it would permit an 0.05 percent tolerance level of ergot in wheat imports, after having previously announced a zero tolerance policy.
Suppliers have been reluctant to make offers to GASC and those who did had been adding a risk premium to prices.
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