The "war of the corridors" threatens to become a serious setback for agriculture in Almeria. The latest announcements made by the Ministry of Development indicate that the Central Corridor will be operational in the year 2020, while the Mediterranean, in the best case scenario, won't be so until 2024.
This will likely have an impact on the fruit and vegetable sector in Almeria, as the Central Corridor will be used by Moroccan goods, particularly vegetables, which will compete against Almeria's in the EU markets with an advantage.
Investments
The point is that Morocco has already started working to take advantage of this new way out to Europe and has invested heavily in its infrastructure.
On the one hand, there is an important development of greenhouse crops in the area south of Tangier; on the other, important investments have already been made to improve the connections between these areas and the port of Tangier Med, located opposite the coast of Cadiz. Those infrastructures include a high-speed rail line with a terminus station in the port itself.
Direct route
After crossing the strait in container ships, Moroccan vegetables will be able to take advantage of the Central Corridor that crosses Spain towards the French border. This is the fear of Almerian producers. The Secretary General of Coag-Almeria, Andrés Góngora, warned that, at best, Almeria's fruit and vegetable will have to wait four years before gaining access by rail to the EU markets, because the Mediterranean Corridor is developing at a much slower pace than the Central one.
This is important in a commercial scenario where the demand to reduce the carbon footprint is quickly becoming a more relevant issue. Góngora explains that Europe and the large distributors are already starting to demand emission certificates, and in this sense, rail transport has a competitive advantage over trucks.
Source: lavozdealmeria.com
