Egypt’s poultry industry stuck between a rock and hard place

The poultry industry in Egypt has suffered several successive crises that threaten its continuity, the latest of which was the detention of poultry feed in ports due to the foreign currency crisis and the complications of banks’ letters of credit amid a government move to contain these crises that threaten the entire industry.

Crises have been cascading since the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian War, which affected most emerging market economies, especially Egypt, which made drastic decisions to counter the effects resulting from the crisis, including halting letters of credit for imported goods to counter the lack of dollar liquidity, which in turn caused the seizure of fodder in ports and halting its import, making it scarce in the market.

The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) also stopped dealing with collection documents in import operations, instead using letters of credit with everything except for 15 basic commodities.