Egypt seeks to activate commodity trading and government purchases through a dedicated exchange, which may start operating before the end of this year.
brahim Ashmawi, first Assistant Minister of Supply of Egypt and Head of the Internal Trade Development Authority, said in an interview with Al Sharq, "We have conducted many experiments with a range of commodities on the Egyptian Commodity Exchange, the first trade that will be on gold bullion before the end of this year, we will soon also hear about the decision that most government purchases of essential commodities will be local via the commodities exchange."
Since 2019, Egypt has been working on the establishment of such a stock exchange, which was intended to be the beginning of trading on some of the existing storable goods such as wheat, oil, sugar and rice, as the first stage, and more than one date has been set without activation, but Ashmawi confirmed that the activation will be before the end of 2022.
Ashmawi added, "The government pays the exchange to work well, we have been preparing for this for more than a year, the electronic platform of the Egyptian Stock Exchange is fully completed and a group of members subscribing to the Egyptian Commodities Exchange have been formed, the valuation offices are now already in place."
Ashmawi also added that Egypt's wheat consumption is up to 22 million tons per year, producing up to 11 to 12 million tons domestically, and the rest is imported to the public and private sectors.
