CAIRO: Egypt’s commodities exchange on Wednesday invited companies to register to trade sugar on the bourse, which already offers yellow corn and wheat. Sugar will be offered on the exchange starting Thursday, exchange head Ibrahim Ashmawy said in a statement, adding that the move was in line with a government mandate “to regulate the markets of strategic and basic commodities.” Egypt, a major buyer of basic commodities, has been suffering from a foreign currency crunch that sent the pound tumbling by nearly 50 percent against the dollar, suppressed imports, and pushed official headline inflation to record highs. The country has said it has strategic reserves of sugar to cover consumption until the spring of 2024. It has tendered to import raw sugar through the Egyptian Sugar and Integrated Industries Co., which most recently is believed to have purchased around 50,000 tons of raw sugar in an international tender which closed on Aug. 5.