Egypt’s new wheat-buying system was highlighted in an in-depth piece by Bloomberg, with the outlet saying that the Egyptian government’s decision to replace the General Authority for Supply Commodities (GASC) with the newly formed Mostakbal Misr Agency for Sustainable Development as the state’s main grain buyer has made it more difficult for merchants around the world to see the “volumes, price and origins” of the wheat that their rivals are trying to sell to Egypt — a critical market for sellers.

What’s changed: Despite the closed-door nature of grain buys, traders have generally had access to data on Egypt’s big wheat tenders. Since GASC’s replacement by Mostakbal Misr, that information has dried up, leaving “many in the market scratching their heads,” Bloomberg writes.

GASC’s data was “very useful as an insight into the export market and the competitiveness of various origins,” CRM AgriCommodities consultant Mike Verdin told the outlet, adding that it “offered a guide, both through the list of offers as well as the cargoes actually purchased. The loss of this has made the market less transparent, in my view, with info on other tenders less complete, and less frequent,” he said.

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