Egypt, the biggest buyer of Russian wheat, boosted its grain purchases from Russia by 38% in 2025 compared with the similar period of last year, Russia's agricultural watchdog said on Thursday.

The watchdog said Egypt has bought 1.26 million metric tons of grain from Russia since the start of the year, in addition to 11.4 million tons it bought in 2024. The watchdog did not say how much of this volumes was wheat.

Analysts from rail carrier Rusagrotrans earlier said in a report that Egypt imported 6.3 million metric tons from July 2024 to January 2025, a 70% increase compared to last year.

Russia, the world's largest wheat exporter, expected it grain exports to fall by one-fifth from last season's record to 55-57 million metric tons in this season, after the harvest was hit by bad weather.

(Reporting by Olga Popova, writing by Gleb Bryanski; editing by David Evans)