According to Khaleej Times, bread has been one of the most sensitive issues for Egypt. State grain buyer the General Authority for Supply Commodities (GASC), together with private importers, normally obtains around ten million tonnes of wheat a year.
"Due to political instability, Egypt is likely to slash imports to between seven and eight million tonnes this year," Arkady Zlochevsky, head of the Union, told a briefing in Moscow.
"Russia will account for half of Egypt’s imports subject to its (Russia’s) falling domestic wheat prices," he added. Russia supplied around 2.7 million tonnes of wheat to Egypt in 2012/13.
He expects all grain exported from Russia to total 2.5 million tonnes in August and 1.5 million tonnes in July.
Russia is expected to boost this year’s wheat harvest by 42 per cent to 54 million tonnes after last year’s drought, according to the latest Reuters poll. It has threshed 7.7 million tonnes of wheat as of 3 July.
