The total Egyptian agricultural exports of various crops to different countries of the world during the current season reached about 3.1m tonnes, according to an official report from the Central Department of Agricultural Quarantine of the Ministry of Agriculture.
The report described the increase as a remarkable one compared to the same period of last year.
For his part, Acting Minister of Agriculture and Land Reclamation Abdel Moneim El Banna said that the increase was due to the efforts exerted during the past period to ensure the safety and quality of Egyptian agricultural products and to increase their exportability through a number of agricultural measures, in order to maintain the export reputation of Egypt globally.
Commenting on the increase, Mohsen Al-Batran, former chairperson of Principal Bank for Development and Agricultural Credit (PBDAC) and professor of agricultural economics at Cairo University, told Daily News Egypt that the increase is a significant one in comparison with the year-prior period, but it still does not fit with Egypt’s agricultural, research, and intellectual potential.
He suggested that Egypt has to set up an integrated strategy with the aim of marketing its crops. That strategy should include the commercial representative offices, sufficient quarantine facilities, as well as the country’s financial policies, in order to encourage exporting.
“This strategy should deal with all the processes of agriculture, starting from the seeds and the farmers, and ending with the prices of the crops and the marketing,” he asserted.
The professor explained that the increase was due to the low prices of Egyptian agricultural exports in global markets as a result of the devaluation of the Egyptian pound against the dollar.
Furthermore, he agreed with the minister that the increase was also due to the measures taken by Egypt to ensure the safety and quality of Egyptian agricultural crops.
Moreover, the report pointed out that this agricultural season witnessed a big boom in Egypt’s exports of citrus and potatoes, as the total exported citrus fruits reached about 1.24m tonnes, while total exported potatoes were about 702,925 tonnes.
Batran said that the countries that import the most citrus are Arab and European countries.
On the other hand, he stated that the countries that import the most potatoes are European countries and the former Soviet Union countries.
