Damascus-Sana
Engineer Suhail Hamdan, Director of Citrus Office at the Ministry of Agriculture, revealed that the first phase of the program of external dependence and marketing of citrus targets farms with an area of more than 25 dunums only to be included in all other areas in the next phase to ensure the benefit of the largest number of farmers in the provinces of Lattakia and Tartous.
Hamdan said in a statement to the SANA Economic Bulletin, about 250 farms were selected out of more than 1500 applicants who met the required conditions. They were distributed between 300 farmers in Tartous and 1200 in Lattakia. This is a good number that could make a qualitative leap in the subject of external marketing of citrus fruits.
He added that the farms that meet the conditions and specifications of dependency will be included in a special table to be submitted to the Export Development and Promotion Authority for approval and then submitted to the companies to give them a certificate of dependence after the examination, pointing out that there is a trend to increase the support provided to citrus farmers through the support of the costs of the accreditation program.
Hamdan pointed out that two Italian and Spanish companies have been accredited with reliability, experience and credibility in international markets. They have opened a main office in Damascus and are working to establish offices in Lattakia and Tartous governorates, pointing out that the two companies have specialized expertise in the field of quality and marketing within an internationally accredited system in this field. Work and targeted farms and have seen the mechanism of action on the ground.
Hamdan expected the results to be good in the field of exporting all kinds of Syrian citrus to foreign markets after the implementation of the reliability program, exporting only 50 thousand tons during the current season of a total of one million tons to achieve high profitability over all quantities exported in previous seasons due to the specificity of Syrian citrus such as taste, form and free of Residual effect of pesticides.
He explained that the aim of the credit program is to encourage agricultural investment through increasing revenues on the farmer and exporter through taking advantage of the added value of the Syrian product and reputation in addition to the introduction of modern marketing methods that contribute to the entry of the Syrian product to the most important markets, indicating that the program targets the process of agriculture and production to export and includes Farmers, exporting companies and packaging centers.
On the marketing process for the current season, Hamdan said that the marketing process is in the beginning and confined within the system of cardamom controlled by traders and brokers, pointing out the lack of internal marketing plans to meet the need of farmers and protect them and the export process suffers from many difficulties, especially to Iraq, while citrus prices have seen a rise compared to last season .
Nadim Mualla
SANA Economic Bulletin
