New agreement expands opportunities for Egyptian fruit and vegetable exports
26 September 2010
Egypt, a direct competitor with some ACP agricultural exporters, has long had preferential access to the EU market. In 2004 a new reciprocal trade agreement entered into force, and subsequent negotiations concluded in 2009 have furthered the liberalisation of ‘certain agricultural and processed agricultural products’ as well as some fishery products.
Press reports claim that the latest changes, which entered into force on 1 June 2010, could result in a 50% increase in the volume of Egyptian fresh fruit and vegetables exported to the EU. This needs to be seen against the background of the strong growth of ‘EU imports of fruits and vegetables from Egypt … in the last decade from 247,512 tonnes in 1998 to 481,439 tonnes in 2008. According to a press report of October 2009, Egypt is now ‘the third largest vegetable supplier of the EU after Morocco and Israel’. It was reported in August 2010 that Egypt’s share of the EU market for fresh fruit and vegetables increased ‘by more than 2.2%’ between 2004 and 2008.
Editorial comment
The EC is concluding or extending a number of trade agreements involving new agricultural market access concessions. With each agreement there is a tendency for the signatory government to emphasise the benefits of the new market access agreed, regardless of the specific nature of the concessions made and even such basic issues as the seasonality of production and demand. The questions therefore arise for the ACP of what these agreements will mean for the competitive position of ACP suppliers, and which products and ACP countries are likely to be most severely affected. These questions are more easily answered at country and sub-sectoral level. They require an analysis that compares the provisions of each new agreement with what it replaces, in order to flag the products in which there could be new competition. These can then be analysed to identify whether they are exported by an ACP state, and to explore the underlying competitiveness of the ACP exporters concerned.
To address this need, one of the best ways forward to track the potential impact of new EU trade agreements may be in building the capacity of government officials and staff of private sector associations on the tools available for undertaking such analysis. EU agreements are published in the official journal of the EU (which is available online), while International Trade Centre data bases, such as Trade Map (which shows who is exporting what to whom) and Market Access Map (which shows the tariff and non-tariff barriers that they face) are still available to users in developing countries free of charge up till the end of 2010. Building the capacity of government officials and private sector bodies to use these and other available tools could greatly facilitate the monitoring of the impact of a wide range of new trade agreements, not only those involving the EU.
