"Wheat deliveries are one of the key points of our relations, Russia is one of the key suppliers to the Egyptian market. Now we are satisfied with the level of cooperation achieved and are aimed not only at maintaining the current pace of supplies, but at further increasing them, as well as expanding the range" Shukri said.
"We aim to continue working with our partners in this direction," he added, saying 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 trade relations between the two countries have a long history, and "we have long been working on developing appropriate mechanisms that will allow us to use them in the spirit of greater sovereignty ( local currencies - IF) in their trading operations". "This will facilitate trade operations. We intend to increase the volume of transactions in these currencies. Now we are only at the initial stage, we still have a series of consultations on this issue, but we are focused on further work," he said.
As reported in the telegram channel of the Russian Union of Grain Exporters, Egypt has contracted 5.06 million tons of wheat in Russia for seven months of the current agricultural year (started on July 1, 2022), of which 4.55 million tons have already been delivered. At the same time, for the entire last agricultural year, almost the same volume of wheat was exported to this country - 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 earlier.