Regional Updates MEDITERRANEAN/MIDDLE EAST/NORTH AFRICA/AFRICA – MEA REGION Egypt’s trade deficit in June dropped by 5.1 percent to $2.87 billion – in dollar terms wheat imports were down by 21.5 percent while corn imports saw a reduction of 28.6 percent. Total for all imports in June was $6 billion with exports at $3.13 billion. Egypt’s Competition Authority has filed criminal charges against 21 major egg producers for fixing egg prices. Egg producers are major consumers of both corn and soymeal and this legal action against producers is not expected to reduce egg production or feed consumption but could reduce the market prices for eggs. Egypt’s Minister of Supply said that by 2030 grain storage cap...
Communicating importance of value-added products
Facing increasing pressure to quantify the value of export promotion efforts to investors, a U.S. industry organization retained WPI to develop a quantitative model that better communicated the importance of exports. The resulting model concluded that value-added meat exports contributed $0.45 cents per bushel to the price of corn, increasing support for that sector’s financial support of WPI’s client. In addition to serving the red meat industry with this type of analysis, WPI has generated similar deliverables for the U.S. soybean and poultry/egg industries.