The Ministry of Agriculture of the Kurdistan Region announced that the Kurdistan Region’s need for table eggs amounts to 7 thousand cartons per day, and it will send the surplus to central and southern Iraq.
And the Iraqi Minister of Agriculture, Abbas Al-Alaywi, had directed yesterday to “allow the transfer of table eggs produced in the Kurdistan Region’s poultry projects to the rest of the other governorates of Iraq and vice versa,” noting that the decision came to “confront the rise in the prices of this vital material in the local market.”
The Director of Livestock at the Ministry of Agriculture of the Kurdistan Region, Firas Siddiq, said on Thursday (January 12, 2023): “We used to send table eggs to central and southern Iraq in the past without receiving facilities,” adding that there are good facilities that are being provided now, “as the Iraqi market is formed It is a good market for us and we send 50% of our production there.”
And he indicated that the Kurdistan Region’s need for table eggs amounts to 7 thousand cartons per day, explaining that they send the surplus to central and southern Iraq.
The decline in the exchange rate of the Iraqi dinar against the dollar led to an increase in the prices of table eggs in the Iraqi markets, from 7,000 dinars per class to 8,500 dinars, while their price in the Kurdistan Region markets is 6,500 dinars.
During the past months, Iraq witnessed a crisis in the production of table eggs, as import operations affected local production due to the discrepancy in prices between home and abroad, which made the Ministry of Agriculture decide to stop imports, and thus the price of eggs in the local market increased.
The Director of Livestock in the Ministry of Agriculture of the Kurdistan Region, pointed out that the prices of table eggs “have risen in neighboring countries as well,” noting that “the rise in food prices in neighboring countries directly affects the Kurdistan Region.”
The Kurdistan Region annually produces two billion and 500 thousand table eggs and 300 thousand tons of chicken meat, at a time when its daily need is one billion table eggs and about 150 tons of chicken meat.
Concerning the decrease in the price of chicken meat, despite the high price of table eggs, Firas Seddik explained that poultry projects for meat production differ from those that produce table eggs, as chickens are raised in meat production projects within a period of 40 days, adding that “entrepreneurs are still losing By selling their production at the current price.”
For his part, the Director of Commercial Control in Sulaymaniyah, Soran Abdul Ghafour, confirmed the decrease in the price of chicken meat to 2,350 dinars per kilogram.
It is noteworthy that the owners of poultry fields in Basra Governorate, which number about 110 fields, mentioned in September 2022 that they suffer from many problems that caused them to suffer great financial losses, including merchants wrapping Iranian and Turkish eggs with Iraqi cartons and selling them in the markets as Iraqi table eggs. Noting that during the coming months it will be difficult for citizens to obtain Iraqi eggs.
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