MOOSE JAW, Sask. – Canada is investigating bilateral trade agreements with countries in the Middle East and North Africa.
James Hannah, senior international marketing officer with Agriculture Canada, said although Canada is participating in the World Trade Organization talks there is concern that “the multilateral might not work, so we’ve started to do things on the bilateral front.”
The Middle East and North Africa region of 19 countries and 350 million people is largely untapped by Canadian agricultural exporters.
The region imports an estimated $50 billion worth of agriculture and food products each year, he said. Canadian exports last year, to the end of November, were $1.3 billion.
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Canada is looking at where it has advantages and can start moving more products.
“We’ve identified Saudi Arabia and Dubai in the (Persian) Gulf area,” Hannah told the Western Canadian Marketers and Processors Association.
Initial talks have been held with Jordan, and the government is also interested in Morocco.
A December trade mission to Saudi Arabia and Dubai was well received, Hannah said, but negotiating with individual countries isn’t easy. The Gulf states are members of the Gulf Co-operation Council and the council leads trade talks, Hannah said.
Members include the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar, and Yemen is negotiating to join.
The Middle East is wealthy and acts as a gateway to other countries.
Two years ago, the UAE spent $88 million on Canadian canola, which it then crushed and sold, Hannah said. The meal went to Asia for the hog market and the oil went to Germany for biodiesel.
The UAE also buys wheat, pulses and sunflowers.
Hannah said the country also imports ice cream, as do several countries in the Gulf region, buying it for their Baskin Robbins outlets. The UAE and Saudi Arabia spent $20 million on ice cream last year.
Saudi Arabia is a major buyer of barley and also imports pulses, potato products and honey.
Hannah said smaller Gulf countries are serviced from Dubai. Total Canadian exports to the region were worth about $440 million for the first 11 months of last year.
Exports to North Africa were $460 million, mostly durum. About 80 percent of Algeria’s $196 million trade with Canada was on durum.
Ninety percent of the trade with Morocco is durum, and 98 percent of spending by Libya and Tunisia is for Canadian durum.
Hannah said the Ontario Wheat Producers’ Marketing Board was in Egypt last week marketing its crop. It also sold wheat to Egypt in 2006.
Other countries that do business with Canada include Iraq, which spent $213 million last year on wheat from the Canadian Wheat Board.
Although Canada has a noninvolvement policy with Iran, business there totals about $145 million. More than half of that is soybeans, followed by corn, pulses and livestock semen.
While Iran and Iraq are on the Persian Gulf, neither are members of the Gulf Co-operation Council.
Hannah said countries throughout the Middle East and North Africa depend on food imports because of their desert conditions.
“They don’t have any potential to grow anything,” he said.
Canada faces competition from the United States and Europe into North Africa. In the Gulf region, Australia, New Zealand and Brazil are also competitors.
Hannah said Australia has an advantage because it can ship in less than two weeks, compared to the five or six weeks it can take from Canada.
He added that 25 Canadian companies will attend Gulfood 2008 in Dubai at the end of February. It is the premier food and trade show in the region. Canada has also reserved space for 2009.
