THE RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR HAS TURNED EGYPT’S FOOD CRISIS INTO AN EXISTENTIAL THREAT TO THE ECONOMY

Securing those supplies has led Egypt Egypt’s massive wheat imports are driven by the widespread to become the world’s largest importer of wheat and among consumption of the traditional round flatbread known as eish the world’s top 10 importers of sunflower oil. [...] The price of soft wheat used in bread wheat purchases and subsidies will now become an even greater manufacture stood at $271 per ton at the end of the third fiscal burden for the treasury to bear. [...] S., Canada, Russia, Ukraine, and the rest of the Black Sea region experienced crop damage due to In addition to bread, the Russia-Ukraine war has begun to droughts, frost, and heavy rain. As of March 3, 2022, just seven disrupt Egypt’s supply of sunflower seed oil, the country’s main days into Russia’s Ukraine invasion, the end of day settlement vegetable oil along with soybean oil. [...] With the additional In August 2021, President Sisi acknowledged the pressing June 2020 staff-level agreement between Egypt and the IMF need to move forward with bread subsidy reform and the on a $5.2 billion stand-by arrangement to offset COVID-19’s delicate political nature of the task. [...] Ministerial-level attention adverse economic impact, Egypt experienced GDP growth of to the topic intensified during January and early February 2022 3.6% in 2020 in contrast to the economic contractions that ahead of the annual March budget planning period before being swept almost all the countries in the MENA region.