Article published in the Arab-German Chamber of Commerce - March 2007
"It was a dream to see small agriculture producers exporting", said Egypt's Minister of International Cooperation, Fayza Aboul Naga. In 15 months, this dream came true, thanks to the Green Corridor Initiative, financed by the agreement on the Debpt Swap between Italy and Egypt in March 2005.
Among others, phytosanitary standards, specifications, traceability, logistics, and market access have always been the nightmares of small agroproduce exporters. yet the nightmare became a summer dream for farmers in West Nubariya Area. With the support of the Ministry of foreign Trade and Industry and its Agriculture Commodity Council, the two years pilot project of only quarter a milion Euros was a huge success with high replicable potential.
On 14 June 2006 the first shipment of 14 tons table grapes, grown in Egypt, was exported to Italy. From production to trade, the process was supervised and coordinated by the Agronomic Institute of the Mediterranean (IAM) in Bari with the support of Confcooperative Puglia.
The project simply aimed at benefiting from the seasonality and the complementarity between the EU and Egypt. According to the EC DG (Directorate General) Agriculture report, there is a visble reduction in the EU productive capacity induced by the recent climatic changes, the constant reduction of the land fertility and the high cocts of the manpower. And Southern Mediterranean countries can compliment such a gap. However, “the purpose of this agreement is to harmonise Mediterranean production with the aim of eleminating seasonality and avoiding direct competition between southern Italy and the Mediteranean, ” confirmed Italy's Minister of Agriculture, Gianni Alemanno. But does not apply to all products .
Strawberries are perfect bed-fellows where Egypt's sea-son runs to the end of March, while Italy's begins in April. However there is an overlap for some products such as grapes. but that could be coordinated. The Italian farmers from Apulia region provide technical assistance and training to their Egyptian counterparts to produce according to EU
standars in agreed periods and quantities, hence preventing competition.
The support encompassed growing and post harvesting issuses such as packaging, cooling internal transport shipment to Europe through Italian porducers market the Egyptian produce through their normal marketing chains.
What is really important, besides the marketing side, wsa the realization of the traceability system required by the EU. It was included in the labels on each packet which contained also the website address (http://www.green-corridor.com). “We hope it becomes a trustworthy solid brand in the EU market,”said Amin Abaza, minister of Agriculture and the Land Reclamation. “Now this concept could be expanded Nationwide”, he added.
Indeed, the real success is the possible replication. During the recent visit to Russia by Eng. Rashid Mohamed Rashid, Minister of Trade and Industry, he discussed with his counterparts the necessary sanitary and phyto-sanitary requirements for Egypt's fresh fruit and vegetable exports in order to finalize plans to create yet another Green Corridor between Egypt and Russia.
Several new shipping lines are now calling upon the ports of Alexandria, Damietta and Port Said to cater for the ever-growing exports. Newer destinations are emerging as hubs to enter the EU and eastern European countries. “The Motorways of the Sea initiative of the EC will further support such initiative along with various trade and services enhancement programmes offered by the EC” said Klaus Ebermann, the Eu ambassdor and head of EC delegation.
Now it is the role of the Egyptian Europe an bilateral chambers to replicate such a success story, each with its European Union member state creating a maze of green corridors.