Egyptian potatoes enter Turkish markets: Minister

CAIRO – 21 March 2019: Minister of Agriculture and Land Reclamation Ezz el-Din Abu Steit received a report on the success of the agricultural quarantine in opening Turkish markets to Egyptian potatoes.

Head of the Central Administration of Agricultural Quarantine Ahmed al-Attar said in a statement that the export of potatoes to Turkey will begin effectively from Thursday after all the necessary procedures and technical conditions have been met.

Attar stressed that the ministry is seeking to open new markets in all countries of the world to Egyptian agricultural exports, which will contribute to increasing the country's resources of foreign currency and the value added to national output.

The minister of agriculture said that the agricultural quarantine also succeeded three months ago in opening Turkish markets to the Egyptian onions, and expected that 2019 will witness unprecedented increase in the Egyptian agricultural exports.

Previously, Attar said that 2018 witnessed a boom in the export of Egyptian agricultural products which exceeded 5.2 million tons and 2019 is expected to witness further increase thanks to the cooperation between the Agriculture Ministry and relevant ministries as well as the Export Council for Agricultural Crops.

Attar added that the Egyptian agricultural exports during 2018 saw an increase of 500,000 tons compared to the previous year.

Egypt’s agricultural exports recorded about $1.2 billion during 2017/2018, according to Chairman of Export Council of Agricultural Crops and Member of the House of Representatives Abdel Hamid Demerdash.