Agriculture & Agro-industry
From The Report: Egypt 2017
View in Online Reader

Despite steadily increasing urbanisation in recent years, the agriculture sector remains a cornerstone of Egypt’s economy, both in terms of overall value-added output and employment. Egypt produces a wide range of crops and other agricultural products, including cereals such as wheat and corn rice, fruits and vegetables, sugar, cotton, dairy products, livestock and fish, among others. Solid support for agricultural activity on the part of the government and new opportunities for domestic and foreign investors alike point to an expansion of the sector in the coming years. However, Egypt’s agriculture sector still faces a range of challenges. High and rising rates of inflation are an issue, with the annual food and beverage inflation rate at 13.8% as of October 2016, up significantly from 11% a year earlier. The current government has set out a series of focused agriculture-focused programmes in a bid to address these issues.

This chapter contains an interview with Ahmed El Rashidi, Managing Director, El Rashidi El Mizan.

Articles from this Chapter

Overview

Rejuvenated focus: State-led development plans bode well for agricultural output
OBG
plus

Despite steadily increasing urbanisation in recent years, the agriculture sector remains a cornerstone of Egypt’s economy today, in terms of both overall value-added and employment. In 2015 – the most recent year for which data was available – the industry accounted for around 11% of the country’s GDP, according to data from the Lebanon-based Bank Audi, making it the fourth-largest contributor to the economy for the year. In the same period the sector employed between 30-40% of the country’s…

Interview

Quality Focus: Ahmed El Rashidi, Managing Director, El Rashidi El Mizan, on: the challenges facing producers of perishable consumer goods
OBG
plus

Interview: Ahmed El Rashidi Which part of Egypt’s distribution network is most in need of infrastructure improvements? AHMED EL RASHIDI: The transportation network connecting the farmer to the market is very basic. There is a lack of refrigerated logistical centres and a need for additional collection centres in the three to four governorates with large fresh food markets. On reaching the destination, space is not available to responsibly shelve and store perishable goods. Therefore, most perishable…

Analysis

Greening the desert: Ambitious plans to improve food security involve reclaiming: vast tracts of desert land
OBG
plus

Over the past few decades Egypt’s food security situation has slowly but steadily deteriorated. Today, around half of the food consumed annually in the county has been imported from elsewhere in the world. This represents a major turnaround from the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s, when Egypt not only produced enough food to meet most domestic demand, but was also an important food exporter to countries across the MENA region. This shift can be attributed to a range of factors, including rapid population…