Climate change has positively impacted the citrus cultivation in Egypt, says Amr Kadah, CEO of Egyptian produce exports Fruit Kingdom: “Despite the small size of citrus fruits this year, climate change has positively affected the production of citrus fruits in Egypt. The temperature differences between day and night helped the Egyptian citrus fruits to get good coloration, which makes the fruit more attractive for buyers. The Egyptian citrus fruits are characterized by the increase of their sugar content. The total agricultural exports of citrus fruits amounted to one million and 637 thousand tons.”
According to Kadah, the citrus from Egypt has managed to enter quite a few new markets over the past years. “The Egyptian citrus has passed the most difficult global quarry bases in the presence of the Japanese market, the Chinese market and others in just two years. The volume of citrus exports last year reached 1.8 million tons of citrus fruits, out of a total of 5.6 million tons of agricultural exports as a whole. Citrus cultivation in Egypt occupies about 480 thousand acres, with different varieties such as oranges of all kinds, tangerines, Adalia lemons, mandarin and grapefruits, all of which are exportable. Oranges accounted for 90% of the total exports of citrus fruits.”
Kadah states that Egyption production of citrus, and oranges specifically is still growing every year. “Egypt became the world's largest exporter of oranges and surpassed its competing countries Spain and South Africa during the last season. Our total orange exports are expected to increase by 15% more than the previous season. The increase in production and demand for citrus fruits worldwide is expected to drive up orange exports of Egypt. Egypt’s main export destinations are the Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, China and the UAE. We also export oranges to Bangladesh, Ukraine, U.K., Malaysia, Oman, India and have recently started exporting to Brazil as well.”
“After Brazil, Japan and New Zealand, Egypt and the Philippines have now signed a protocol allowing Egyptian citrus access to the Philippine market, thus inaugurating cooperation between the two countries in the agricultural field, which was confirmed by the Egyptian Foreign Ministry,” Kadah concludes.
For more information:
Amr Kadah
Fruit Kingdom for Export
Tel: +20 100 928 8377
Email: amr.kadah@mail.ru
www.linkedin.com/in/amr-kadah