A major expo featuring the palm date, Egypt's strategic fruit crop, concluded on Tuesday. Attracting agri-businessmen home and abroad, the eight-day event bears the hope of Egypt to turn a product mostly serving domestic consumers into an export flagship.
Egypt's huge production capacity of palm dates is a key advantage that has been highlighted at the 3rd edition of the Cairo International Dates Festival to some 70 companies from countries including Egypt, Saudi, Libya, Jordan and Sudan.
Egypt is the largest date-producing country in the world. In 2020, Egypt produced 1.7 million tons of dates, contributing over 21 percent of global date production, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. The FAO said Egypt has good potential to mass produce semi-dry varieties suitable for export, including the introduced variety Medjool, but despite the growth in international demand, its export contribution to the international dates market is low. The Egyptian government is keen to introduce the country's dates to foreign markets, as the fruit can bring in lucrative income and help create more jobs.
Source: english.news.cn