INDORE, Nov 8: Egypt has finalised a long-term agreement with India to buy wheat and sugar in exchange for items like rock phosphate and cotton, a senior Indian official said on Saturday.

Egypt has been looking for new sources to meet its wheat and sugar needs. We have finalised an offset deal for the supply of these items, the official, who did not want to be identified told Reuters on the sidelines of a trade meeting in the central Indian city of Indore.

He declined to give the amount of wheat and sugar that Egypt will buy as part of the arrangement.

India’s State Trading Corporation had agreed to supply of 60,000 tons of wheat to Egypt to meet their immediate requirements. Egypt, the one of the world’s leading wheat importers, sources most of its supplies from the United States.

The Egyptian supply and internal trade minister, Hassan Khidr, and senior officials from Egypt’s General Authority for Supply Commodities (GASC) were in India last month to negotiate prices.

India has struggled for the past six months to sell wheat to Egypt despite getting a stamp of approval from Egypt on quality.

India, which has been exporting around 400,000 tons of wheat every month, stopped issuing fresh stocks to exporters temporarily in August as stocks fell due to soaring exports and last year’s devastating drought.

But a senior FCI official said India was still in a position to sell around two million tonnes of wheat.

India’s grain stocks dipped to about 30.5 million tons on August 1 from 59.8 million tons on the same day a year earlier.

India, sitting on a sugar stockpile of 10 million tons, plans to double its exports to three million tons in 2003/04 (April-March).

SAO PAULO: Brazilian sugar shipments fell 10.6 per cent to 1.43 million tons in October from 1.60 million tons in September, shipping agents Williams said on Friday.

Williams said September shipments by Brazil, the world’s biggest sugar producer and exporter, equaled the record monthly shipment of 1.60 million tonnes in August.

The main center-south cane crop that accounts for 85 per cent of Brazil’s total cane output is coming to a close in November and will then enter the inter-harvest period until April.

The smaller northeast cane crop is 30 per cent harvested this week and will continue harvesting until January.

October shipments consisted of 1.03 million tons of raws and 402,050 tons of whites.

About 76 per cent of the sugar was shipped through the southern port of Santos — 722,199 tons of raws and 362,000 tons of whites.—Reuters