Egypt plans to increase purchases of wheat in Russia
According to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the country, Sameh Shukri, Cairo and Moscow are currently working on the creation of a system of payment for purchases in rubles.
Egypt, one of the largest importers of wheat to Russia, intends to increase its purchases. This was stated by Foreign Minister Sameh Shukri at a press conference following talks in Moscow with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, reports Interfax.
“The supply of wheat is one of the options for choosing our relations, Russia is one of the options for choosing the Egyptian market. “At present, we have reached the achieved level of combinations, as well as expanding the range,” Shukri said. He added that this issue was discussed in detail during the talks.
Answering a question about the prospects for using settlements in local currencies, in particular in rubles, Shukri said that the parties “intend to increase the volume of transactions in these currencies.”
“Right now we are only at the beginning stage, we still have a series on this issue, but we entail exceptional work,” he said. In doing so, the minister uses a long-standing trade link between the two countries, and “we have been working for a long time to develop mechanisms that differ in the spirit of greater sovereignty of their (local currencies) in their trade transactions.”
According to the Russian Union of Exporters, Egypt has contracted 5.06 million tons of wheat in Russia for seven months of mass consumption of the agricultural year (started on July 1, 2022), of which 4.55 million tons have already been delivered. At the same time, almost the same volume of wheat was exported in Egypt for the entire last agricultural year – 5.04 million tons. According to the Russian Grain Union, Egypt purchased almost 870 thousand tons of wheat in January, which is 2.3 times more than a year ago.
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