2023-09-07 15:03:26
Wheat at a good price for the Moroccan market. This is what the Russian Federation, the world’s leading exporter of this precious cereal, which is used in the composition of several bakery products, including breads, cakes, biscuits and pastries, offers.
Vladimir Baïbakov, Russian Ambassador to Morocco, undertook to extend this invitation in a particular context for the Kingdom affected by an increased drought.
Indeed, in an interview with the Russian news agency TASS (Telegrafnoïe aguentstvo Sovietskovo Soïouza), the Russian diplomat whose country has withdrawn from the Black Sea grain agreement, supposed to allow the secure export of grain from Ukraine, announced that his country is ready to supply wheat to the national market at a reasonable price.
“We are ready to provide wheat at a reasonable price,” he said in this interview published earlier this month on the TASS agency website.
Russia and Morocco buy from each other the products most in demand in their markets. Coal and petroleum products represent a large part of Moroccan imports, while Russia buys citrus fruits and fish,” added Vladimir Baïbakov.
Given that this offer from Russia takes place “in the context of new geopolitical conditions and the exacerbation of the energy and food crises, such a partnership is particularly important”, said the Russian diplomat.
But beyond the particular context, it is important to emphasize that “Morocco remains among Russia’s main commercial and economic partners in Africa”, continued the ambassador.
Moreover, as the diplomat recalls, “in 2022, the Kingdom was the third country in terms of exports and the fourth in terms of imports”.
That’s not all. According to the diplomat, “after the coronavirus pandemic, the trade turnover between our countries has again exceeded the 2 billion mark and it continues to increase”.
Russia’s move should come as no surprise to the French economic and financial newspaper La Tribune, which estimated last month that “for the 2022-2023 campaign, Russia could reach new export records, in particular to countries of Africa, with particularly attractive prices”.
Be that as it may, given the situation in Morocco, the country currently only covers between 55 and 65% of its needs in a normal year, it’s a safe bet that Russia’s approach could seduce number of Moroccan importers.
As we noted in one of our editions on this product, if Morocco’s productivity “does not improve radically, its rate of coverage of cereal needs will be less than 40% in the years to come. A rate which will continue to decrease until the population stabilizes more or less towards the middle of the century”.
It is important to emphasize that the 2022/2023 agricultural campaign is part of a climatic sequence of 5 difficult years marked by the succession of dry years, according to an observation by the Ministry of Agriculture, Maritime Fisheries, Rural Development and Waters and Forests.
The Department further notes that it was characterized by unstable temperatures, with low minima in February and March and above previous season levels from April, adding that cereal production would be around of 55.1 million quintals for the new season.
Alain Bouithy
1694100039
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