FT: Egypt Becomes World's Largest Exporter of Oranges

Financial Times expressed that Egypt became the largest exporter of oranges in the world overtaking Spain’s position, moreover, the newspaper named Egypt as one of the top suppliers of fruits in the world.

Officials in Cairo indicated that Egypt became the world’s largest exporter of oranges by volume, overtaking Spain, and South Africa positions, however, both countries still make much more in revenue from their orange exports.

According to the International Trade Center, the Arab country exported almost 1.8m tonnes of oranges in 2019 to be in the first position instead of Spain.

Revenue from exports was around $660m. Due to the impacts of COVID-19, the exported quantities may be less than in 2019.

“Global orange consumption has grown and Egypt has been able to capture the increase in the market,” says Mohamed Abdel Hady, an orange grower, and exporter who heads the Citrus Committee at the Agricultural Export Council, a business association.

“Egypt has the advantage of a cheap currency which means our prices are competitive. Oranges have made a jump in income for farmers so they are planting more.”

Furthermore, Sherif el Maghraby, chairman of Magrabi Agriculture, one of the country’s leading fruit and vegetable exporters, says: “Typical land ownership in the Delta is less than an acre. The big investments are all made in the desert. Technology comes with that, and farms are big so they can afford to have their own pack houses.”

On his part, Tom Leenheer, commercial director at Van Ooijen Citrus, a Dutch fruit and vegetable wholesaler, says in recent years he has been “seeing more and more local oranges on the market. The price/quality [equation] is good.” It is also noticeable, he adds, that increasing numbers of Egyptian growers were starting their own companies in Holland to trade in orange imports from this Arab-African country.

Most of the country’s orange exports come from large farms on reclaimed desert land established during the past three decades, rather than the old fertile fields of the Delta and Nile Valley, where landholdings are fragmented and farmers cannot afford the level of investment required to produce for export.