(Bloomberg) -- Egypt will begin receiving a delayed Russian shipment of 430,000 tons of wheat in November, Supply Minister Sherif Farouk told Bloomberg on Monday.
Farouk didn’t provide additional details and declined to lay out the reasons behind the delay in the deal that was reached in September. The shipment had been planned for October, with delivery no later than the first week of November.
The delay highlights the challenges Egypt — one of the world’s biggest wheat purchasers — is facing in building stocks for the vital commodity at a time when it’s also struggling to revive an economy just emerging from its worst foreign currency crisis in decades.
Russia is the world’s top wheat supplier, and its exporters union has indicated that there’s disagreement over who Russian sellers should be dealing with in Egypt.
Egyptian authorities in August said they were tendering for a mammoth order of 3.8 million tons of wheat, but only a small fraction of that quantity was purchased and no tenders have been held since.
Farouk said that tender had “expired” and that the government had the option of moving ahead with other tenders or direct purchases with wheat suppliers. The comments spoke to Egypt’s emphasis that it won’t be tied to any specific exporter, and that it is open to diversifying its wheat sources, depending on global prices.
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