Dubai is the gateway to the Arabian Gulf for Moroccan food products

The North African country exports 1.35 per cent of its total agricultural produce to the Gulf states, according to the Moroccan trade minister.

Tea is served at the Maroc showroom during the Gulfood trade show in Dubai on Monday. Jaime Puebla / The National

Morocco’s agri-business sector is planning to tap into Dubai as a hub to enter the Arabian Gulf countries and increase its export share in the region.

The North African country exports 1.35 per cent of its total agricultural produce to the Gulf states, according to Mohammed Abbou, the minister delegate of the Ministry of Industry, Trade, Investment and Digital Economy who is in charge of foreign trade in Morocco.

“Around 70 per cent of our exports in the sector go to the European Union,” he said at the Gulfood trade show in Dubai.

Morocco’s produce tends towards processed foods, such as tinned sardines and anchovies, but it also exports fruits and vegetables.

The Casablanca-based company VCR Sodalmu, which manufactures and sells sauces, dressings, canned fish and other products, has been trying to enter the UAE for three years and started selling canned sardines in the country through one distributor last year. (The company declined to name the distributor.)

“Dubai and the UAE will serve as a bridge to reach other countries” in the region, said Mehdi Alj, the director general of VCR Sodalmu. The group, whose revenues last year stood at 3 billion Moroccan dirhams (Dh1.35bn), has chosen Nigeria as the largest market for its canned sardines.

The UAE signed a free-trade agreement with Morocco in 2001 that came into effect in 2005. All products traded between the countries enjoy full exemption from customs duties.

Morocco is expected to increase its grain and dairy produce in the next three years after large-scale mechanisation of the sector, rising domestic consumer demand and improved technologies.

The country is expected to increase its wheat production by 29.9 per cent to 7.5 million tonnes by 2017, and by 17.4 per cent in diary produce to 2.8 million tonnes by 2017, according to the research company Business Monitor International in December.

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