The Initiative started with the Joint Declaration in 2002, signed by the Egyptian and Italian Ministries of Agriculture, Yousef Waly and Gianni Alemanno.

The Green Corridor is an initiative aiming to strengthen and rationalize the cooperation between Italy and Egypt in the agro-food sector, in order to achieve common profits in the globalization of the markets. The objective is to increase the export of Egyptian fruits and vegetables towards Italy and, through Italy, towards Europe, as well as to open the Egyptian markets to some Italian fruits and vegetables. It is necessary to protect the Italian producers’ productive and commercial plans, and for this reason two concepts have been set: the seasonality and the complementarity. The Egyptian and Italian producers organize together the first part of the chain, guaranteeing that the Egyptian products enter the Italian and European markets in the agreed periods and quantities.

The project, amounting about € 250.000, is financed by the Debt for Development Swap Program, whose fund is used to finance projects promoting the socio-economic development and the safeguard of the national environment.

The idea to create a “Corridor” between Egypt and Europe originated in the need to satisfy the increasing European demand for fresh fruits and vegetables. This demand originated in the reduction of the European productive capacity, caused by the recent climatic changes, the constant reduction of the land fertility and the high costs of the manpower.

Europe turns mainly to the productive area of the southern Mediterranean coast. Different Mediterranean countries, like Morocco, Tunisia and Turkey have already gotten well organized and have reached the quality standards required by the European markets.
Also Egypt has to do the same and Italy, with the Green Corridor Pilot Project (GCPP) – the first concrete action decided inside the framework of the Initiative – is the first country to give a concrete contribution to it.

The Pilot Project involves the Apulia Region and, in Egypt, the Nubaria area, in the west of the Delta of the Nile. It is a sort of application test of those principles of seasonality. Therefore it aims to analyze and record the difficulties coming out during the productive and commercial chain, in order to get the necessary information that will be used to organize the implementation of a project to be realized at a national level. For Egypt, the investment in this sector means to create new vacancies, to increase the opportunities for the Egyptian operators to acquire new skills and to contribute significantly to the growth of the Egyptian GDP.

The Pilot Project is expected to take 18 months and during this period, with the production and export of about 3.000 tons of fresh products, it will try to:

Test all the stages of the chain, either the ones concerning the production or the ones after the harvesting, like the packaging, the cooling, the domestic transport and the shipment towards Europe through the Italian ports;
Further the complementary productions that are not competing with the Italian producers;
Guarantee the access to export to the small farmers, starting with those from Nubaria, and to improve in this way the socio-economic conditions of the inhabitants of the area;
Build a packing centre in Nubaria that will be at producers’ disposal.

The Project already achieved a concrete result with the first shipment to Italy, on June 14th, of 14 tons of table grapes, made in Egypt. The entire chain of production and trade was organized under the supervision and the coordination of the Agronomic Institute of the Mediterranean (IAM) in Bari, with the participation of Confcooperative Puglia.
Of course this first shipment respects the vision, the principles and the specifics of the Project. Furthermore, the traceability system required by the European law has been realized and applied ad hoc for this Pilot Project (see the column on the left). This system is incorporated in the structure of the labels that contains also the website address (http://www.green-corridor.com) and that have been stuck on each pack of product.

On the occasion of the arrival of this first shipment a brief ceremony will be held. Organized by IAM Bari the ceremony will be attended by three representatives of the Egyptian Ministry of Agriculture and by a high representative of Apulia Region.
On this occasion the latter will also present the progress of the initiative MAE-Regioni, concerning his role.