Regional Updates MEDITERRANEAN/MIDDLE EAST/NORTH AFRICA/AFRICA – MEA REGION Egypt has received a $3 billion 46-month loan from the IMF with extra support of $14 billion expected from other sources. The change to a flexible exchange rate system is expected to “preserve microeconomic stability” and to lead to lower inflation. Egypt officials report that strategic wheat reserves stand at 4.8 month’s supply. Oman’s Salalah Mills reports its wheat reserves stand at a nine-month supply. Oman’s local wheat production is just under 3,000 MT per year – close to 100 percent of wheat supply is imported. Turkish officials say that 556 ships have used the Black Sea grain corridor from Ukraine since it began...
What You Need to Know Today: Iran says its definition of the Strait of Hormuz is now a “vast operation area” that stretches from Jask to Siri Island. The White House said President Trump did not sign a suspension of the TRQs on beef imports but is “finalizing potential...
If the media headlines and Trump critics are to be believed, President Trump is headed to Beijing this Thursday in a weakened position. China is in control, it has the upper hand, and expectations are very low. These are the same critics that argue against overly simplistic zero-sum analyses in...
From WPI Consulting
Illuminating the value of technical research
On behalf of a commodity producer organization, WPI evaluated the outputs from a project that featured a $5 million investment into technical research over multiple years. WPI’s team captured the results of this extensive effort and synthesized them for presentation to the organization’s governing board; among the findings uncovered and presented for the first time was the development of genomic traits proven, via rigorous testing, to provide crop yield advantages of 50 percent or more to U.S. farmers in times of drought. Capturing measurable results from long-term efforts can be challenging. Educating clients on the dynamics of success measurement when quantifiable results are not readily available requires deep client-consultant collaboration and an ability to consider both near- and long-term client aspirations with market/policy dynamics – attributes that WPI brings to every consulting engagement.