Egypt asks five foreign suppliers of rice to submit technical bids

Egypt, seeking to endorse foreign suppliers of rice, sent official requests to five countries asking them to submit their respective technical bids.
Chairman of the General Directorate of Agricultural Quarantine Dr. Ahmed El-Attar said that Egypt sent out official requests to the USA, Russia, India,Taiwan and Philippines to elicit their respective rice-supply bids.
According to a last month's statement delivered by former prime minister Sherif Ismail, Egypt plans to start importing rice to meet domestic shortage in the grain.
Endorsing rice suppliers before actually importing the grain is immensely advisable so as to protect the Egyptian agricultural environment, he noted.
" Specifications for importing rice from each country will be put in place upon perusing their respective technical bids on account of the three criteria related to  the presence of  epidemics, insects and harmful grass," said he, noting that the five countries have been picked owing to quality of rice and  rice flavor mostly cherished by Egyptians.  
Egypt produced 5mln tonnes rice last season out of  planted areas totaling 2mln acres.
The Egyptian government imposed a 740k acres ceiling for growing rice in Egypt and ordered  transgressors to be punished with penalties including  imprisonment and hefty fines.
Farmers Syndicate, chaired by Hussein Abd El-Rahman, criticized decision cutting areas allowed to be planted with rice citing fears of undermining the purity of the Egyptian rice strains and introducing foreign diseases.