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Empresas y finanzas

Libya uses unfrozen funds to buy French wheat


    By John Irish and Valerie Parent

    PARIS (Reuters) - Libya's interim government signed at least two contracts to buy French wheat using funds unfrozen in France earlier this month, four sources close to the deals said on Tuesday.

    France's foreign ministry in early August said it would un-freeze $259 million (159 million pounds) of Libyan assets and place them at the disposal of Libya's ruling interim council, the National Transition Council (NTC), to help the North African country recover from a six-month civil war.

    "It's part of two contracts that the NTC signed for wheat for about 60,000 tonnes each," said a senior executive at French grains firm Soufflet, which won one of the deals.

    He added that these contracts were worth around $22 million each and that the other contract was granted to Nidera.

    The Dutch grains firm did not confirm the figures, stressing its deals had not yet been finalised.

    SHIPMENT IN COMING DAYS

    A shipment of 15,000 tonnes destined for Libya, probably of French wheat and operated by Nidera, was expected to be loaded at the French port of Bordeaux later this week, Reuters data showed.

    "The first shipment will go in the coming days," the Soufflet source said, without giving further details.

    Two other sources said that the sale of French wheat was done in the framework of France's recent release of Libyan funds.

    "The Libyans need a lot of wheat. The immediate needs are about 75,000 tonnes," one of the sources, Michel Casals of the French-Libyan chamber of commerce in Paris, said.

    The last cargo of French wheat to Libya, totalling 7,500 tonnes, left in early June and was shipped by Soufflet, according to Reuters data.

    Trade sources said later that month that Libya's rebels had bought close to 100,000 tonnes of wheat and flour in the previous weeks, the first major commercial food deals done by those fighting to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi.

    Traders said the rebels had bought flour from Russia and the European Union, and wheat had been purchased from producers including France, Serbia and Ukraine.

    Last season, which ended on June 30, France exported nearly 250,000 tonnes of wheat to Libya, up from the 2009/2010 campaign, French customs data showed.

    (Writing by Sybille de La Hamaide, editing by Anthony Barker)