THE COMPETITIVENESS OF EGYPTIAN RICE IN THE MAIN GLOBAL MARKETS (ORYZA SATIVA)

Abstract

Rice is one of the Egyptian agricultural exports, facing numerous changes in the Egyptian economic and political conditions, particularly in recent years .Which leads to the non-stability of the Egyptian agricultural trade balance and the balance of payments, which resulted in a shift of the export map of Egypt. This study aims to evaluate the current situation of Egyptian rice exports and their competitive position in the world market during the period2000-2020. The results showed that the revealed comparative advantage of Egyptian rice exports irregularly decreased during the study it reached about 6.51 as an average during the study period. The average price competitiveness of Egyptian rice exports (436.73 USD/ton) was less than the counterparts of Thailand, Pakistan, China, the USA, India, and Italy. The first market for Egyptian rice was the Sudanese market with a market penetration rate of about 32.52% (an average for the whole studied period), followed by Syrian (31.08%) and Libyan markets (28.43%). The quantitative, price, and value non-stability coefficient of rice (as average) was estimated at 55, 25, and 67.2%, respectively. The export power of Egyptian rice was estimated at about 10.46% for domestic production and annually decreased by a rate of 1.05% during the study period. Therefore, Egypt gradually lost the export power of Egyptian rice due to a decrease in the local production of rice resulting from the paucity of water Sources. The study recommends that Egypt should pay attention to the trade relations between it and these countries and increase exports and penetrate their markets.