The General Authority for Supply Commodities (GASC) announced yesterday that it has organized a public bid to be held Tuesday for importing 230,000 tons of soft wheat from the US and France. The price for the new batch will be approximately US$15 lower than the last bid, which was held mid-September. At that time, the quantity imported stood at 295,000 tons. Hisham Ragab, the Ministry of Trade and Industry's assistant for legal affairs, said that the new prices, which range between US$272 and US$298 per ton, indicate a relative drop in international prices after two months of a continuous surge. Ragab said that the instability of international prices makes it impossible for the Ministry of Finance to determine how much extra money it must provide to compensate for the price increases. According to Ragab, the allocations made to the GASC for wheat imports, which range between US$2.5 billion and US$4 billion, are not final. Translated from the Arabic Edition.
