MEDITERRANEAN/MIDDLE EAST/NORTH AFRICA/AFRICA – MEA REGIONEgypt is rumored to be considering further devaluation of its currency against the U.S. dollar. The Egyptian pound has slipped a little in value to 51 to the U.S. dollar, from 48 to the dollar. However, Egypt’s Prime Minister says that there is no need to panic and that devaluation is not currently being considered.Egypt’s trade deficit has increased by 22.8 percent versus September 2023 with increases seen in oil and natural gas import costs. Wheat and corn import costs were down by about 25 percent due to lower international prices.Egypt’s annual urban inflation rate is at 25.5 percent – the lowest level seen since December 2022. Local food prices dropped by 2.8 percent to 23.3 per...
What You Need to Know Today: The USTR says Brazil has committed “unreasonable” acts against global trade rules and is recommending at 25 percent tariff on nearly all Brazilian ag products (unclear whether this includes beef amid President Trump’s effort to lower beef prices)...
Key Takeaways: The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 set a goal of producing 16 billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol annually by 2022, but actual production reached only a small fraction of that target. High production costs, feedstock collection challenges, and technological hurdl...
Corn The U.S. has yet to ship any corn to China, though last year’s sales were a paltry 32 KMT. Soybeans U.S. soybean export inspections for May rose above the previous year’s level with China as the target market. Citing reduced demand for soymeal, the Ministry of Agriculture...
From WPI Consulting
Communicating importance of value-added products
Facing increasing pressure to quantify the value of export promotion efforts to investors, a U.S. industry organization retained WPI to develop a quantitative model that better communicated the importance of exports. The resulting model concluded that value-added meat exports contributed $0.45 cents per bushel to the price of corn, increasing support for that sector’s financial support of WPI’s client. In addition to serving the red meat industry with this type of analysis, WPI has generated similar deliverables for the U.S. soybean and poultry/egg industries.