Egyptian wheat trade ‘chaotic’ with new state grain buyer

A poorly executed transition to an inexperienced new state grains buyer in Egypt has led to a drop in imports, a significant decrease in stocks and a general mistrust from longtime trading partners.

In December 2024, without an announcement or explanation, the government of Egypt transferred commodities procurement from the General Authority for Supply Commodities (GASC) to the military-linked Future of Egypt. The GASC had been responsible for procurement for decades.

Egypt is one of world’s top wheat importers but saw totals drop by more than 27% year over year in the first half of 2025 to 5.2 million tonnes, while the government’s share of those imports dropped 57% to 1.5 million tonnes. This does not include domestic purchases or any purchases made through brokers or private companies.

From the beginning, it was a “strange decision,” to transfer the responsibility and it was “poorly prepared and implemented,” said Dr. Alexander A. Belozertsev, president of consulting company Alexandra Inc., in response to questions from World Grain.

“The key problem was, and still is, that Mostakbal Misr (the Arabic name for Future of Egypt) did not have any serious expertise and qualified staff to execute such import operations,” he said. “The government of Egypt has not sorted out certain financial flows/issues between the two agencies, and GASC is still involved, directly or indirectly, in financing of Egyptian grain imports. It creates misunderstanding, bottlenecks and chaos among well-known grain exporters.”

As a military-linked organization, Future of Egypt had not previously been involved in grain import operations. International grain trade is rather conservative, he said, where people from both sides know each other for many years.

“When new people come to the table, usually it takes some time to get acquainted with each other in order to find a certain level of trust,” Belozertsev said. “Long-term grain exporters do not have certain trust in Mostakbal Misr and their staff yet. Such a situation still keeps some well-known wheat exporters on hold regarding possible sales to Egypt.”

Former GASC official Yousria Yusry Mohamed was appointed recently to oversee international purchases by the Future of Egypt. Some traders told media outlets that Mohamed is a respected official who brings a level of familiarity and professionalism to the situation.

It could help to a certain extent, Belozertsev said, but the wheat import machine in Egypt does not rely on one person.

“This is a 100% collective effort based on the experienced and reliable staff,” he said. “It will take a while for Yousria Yusry Mohamed to build a strong professional team under the Mostakbal Misr umbrella. Also, there is a need to consolidate all the financial flows in order to make the Mostakbal Misr wheat import operations efficient and profitable enough. This is really a time-consuming process.”

Under the GASC, the nation had a transparent tender centralized system to secure the needed supplies for a bread subsidy program that feeds tens of millions of people. But the Future of Egypt canceled the traditional tenders and initiated bilateral negotiations and purchase of wheat from leading wheat-exporting countries such as France, Russia, Ukraine, Romania and Bulgaria, Belozertsev said. The hope was to get more competitive prices, but importing wheat has instead become less transparent, poorly organized and more sporadic, he said.

“Such an approach created a lot of confusion and disappointments among the wheat exporters,” Belozertsev said.

Payments were delayed, and Future of Egypt attempted to renegotiate prices of canceled contracts when global wheat and vegetable oil prices dropped. Traders viewed these as defaults, which did not happen under GASC.

Belozertsev said there are multiple challenges to improving the wheat import system in Egypt. First, if Future of Egypt maintains the responsibility of wheat import in the coming year, it should work on improving the price formation mechanism, the financial management of the grain import deals and their logistics.

The country must decrease the cost of the wheat import program by decreasing the physical volume of grain imported and/or by advanced price risk management, he said.

“Millions of Egyptians cannot afford to pay even for bread, so the government heavily subsidizes bread prices,” Belozertsev said. “It costs a lot of money, and this is a real burden on the national budget. The government needs permanent international assistance to keep the budget in balance.”

Egypt needs to significantly increase its domestic grain production to diminish its wheat import, which is a challenge since it has limited cultivated agricultural lands and a water deficit, he said. Wheat production for marketing year 2025-26 is estimated at 9.2 million tonnes, a slight increase from the previous year, according to estimates from the Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) of the US Department of Agriculture.

The Agriculture Research Center (ARC) is promoting raised bed cultivation with early-maturing, high-yield wheat varieties that cut water usage by 25%, reduce seed consumption by 15%, and improve crop uniformity and yields. Additionally, ARC is expanding the distribution of certified seeds and setting up demonstration fields to highlight best agri-technologies and practices for new wheat varieties, the FAS said.

Total wheat consumption in 2025-26 for the North African nation of about 119 million people is estimated at 20.3 million tonnes, a slight increase from the previous year due to a 300,000-tonne increase in food, seed and industrial consumption, the FAS said.

Egypt also needs significant improvement of post-harvest operations, Belozertsev said, not just in crop technologies in the field, like high-yield varieties and new machinery, but also post-harvest operations, including storage modernization and marketing.

“All those measures could help to increase the availability of milling wheat, and improve the national wheat balance,” he said.

The government also is looking for ways to change the national bakery requirements by adding new ingredients to produce bread, such as potato, maize and coarse grains.

Belozertsev suggested a straightforward, though admittedly politically difficult, remedy to the current procurement concerns would be putting GASC back in charge.

“Return all the responsibilities on wheat trade back to GASC, as the agency still has all the competencies in this regard,” he said.

Tags: Egypt, grain, prices, GASC, wheat, purchases, imports, stocks, Mostakbal Misr