Egypt auctions imported wheat on mercantile exchange to stabilize market

Egypt’s Ministry of Supply will resume offering wheat through the Egyptian Mercantile Exchange next week after a hiatus of more than 30 months, aiming to rein in erratic local markets and meet private millers’ needs, an official on the Higher Wheat Committee told Al Manassa.

The intervention comes as flour prices show early signs of retreat, with industry representatives projecting a drop of up to 1,000 Egyptian pounds per ton.

The ministry is moving to inject grain supplies into a strained domestic market hit hard by severe import bottlenecks and climbing prices.

In the absence of regular state allocations, commercial bakeries have increasingly skirted government price controls, baking loaves at unauthorized weights and selling them above official caps to protect profit margins at consumers’ expense.

The General Authority for Supply Commodities (GASC) last traded imported wheat on the exchange in January 2024. Authorities suspended trading after a steep price divide opened between state-held grain and private sector commercial stock.

The ministry plans to auction roughly 10,000 tons of wheat during the initial session at prices ranging between 16,600 and 16,650 pounds (about $320) per ton, according to the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. That floor undercuts the free market rate, where wheat currently trades between 16,900 and 17,000 (about $323) pounds per ton.

The current phase restricts bidding exclusively to raw wheat grain, with no provisions to trade milled flour directly, the source added. Each participating mill may purchase allocations between 250 and 500 tons per trading session.

The administrative mechanism seeks to regularize domestic wheat turnover and guarantee balanced operational costs for mills as global market volatility rattles local food security, the source noted.

Shipping disruptions and chronic hurdles in sourcing Russian and Ukrainian wheat have drastically slashed Egypt’s inbound grain volumes in recent months. 

National wheat imports plunged by more than 75% across July and August, totaling just 480,000 tons compared with 1.95 million tons during the corresponding period in 2025. That contraction worsened in September, when imports plummeted 76.6% year-on-year, leaving GASC with zero incoming shipments during the entire month, according to an internal mercantile exchange document reviewed by Al Manassa.

Hany Mekky, deputy head of the Bakeries Division at the Federation of Egyptian Chambers of Commerce, projected that flour prices would decline by 500 to 1,000 pounds ($9.50–$19) per ton once exchange trading gets underway at rates lower than the unregulated open market.

Certain grades of flour have already retreated from peaks above 21,000 pounds ($400) per ton to between 19,700 and 20,500 pounds ($375–$390)per ton, Mekky told Al Manassa. He attributed the immediate drop to speculative anticipation among millers after the ministry signaled it would supply grain below prevailing market benchmarks.

Two days earlier, supply minister Sherif Farouk announced the ministry would release periodic wheat tranches through the exchange to feed unsubsidized flour production. 

Farouk framed the measure as an effort calibrated to demand shifts, designed to secure regular processing inputs and stabilize the production chain for unsubsidized native bread and fino rolls.