Egypt’s agricultural exports exceed 3m tons within five months
Egypt’s agricultural exports exceed 3m tons within five months/node/1867531/business-economy
Egypt’s agricultural exports exceed 3m tons within five months
Farmers load a donkey-drawn cart with produce (foreground) as Egyptian army soldiers stand on guard (background) near Egypt's Suez Canal waterway, on March 29, 2021. (AFP)
Egypt’s agricultural exports exceed 3m tons within five months
The export rates confirm the quality of Egyptian watermelon and peaches as there is an increasing demand from countries that set very difficult specifications and requirements for importing foodstuffs
Updated 30 May 2021
Mohammed Abu Zaid
CAIRO: Egypt’s agricultural exports exceeded 3.3 million tons within five months, according to official figures.
The minister of agriculture and land reclamation, Al-Sayed El-Quseir, said the volume related to the period from Jan. 1 to May 26 of this year.
El-Quseir said the most important agricultural exports during this period were citrus fruits, potatoes, onions, strawberries, pomegranates, potatoes, beans, beets, guavas, peppers, mangoes, garlic and grapes.
He added that 8,500 tons of peaches and about 6,500 tons of watermelon were exported at the beginning of the season to countries across the Middle East and Gulf Cooperation Council regions as well as to Europe.
“The export rates confirm the quality of Egyptian watermelon and peaches as there is an increasing demand from countries that set very difficult specifications and requirements for importing foodstuffs.”
The minister said Egypt’s agricultural products were in the markets of more than 160 countries and that there was an increase of about 250,000 tons between this year’s exports over the past five months and the amount recorded for the same period in 2020.
He praised the efforts of those who, he said, had worked around the clock to facilitate export procedures in support of the national economy.
From machinery to digitization — the tech is different but pace of change is not, says Lagarde
Updated 9 sec ago
Arab News
DUBAI: The parallels between today’s economy and that of the 1920s was discussed by Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank, in Davos on Wednesday.
The session compared the impact of artificial intelligence on today’s economy with technological breakthroughs in the 1920s which altered global trade and stock markets in the aftermath of the First World War.
Lagarde and other panelists discussed the parallels between the economy now and then in the wake of technological changes.
“The technological breakthroughs that took place in the 1920s, whether you look at the size and scope of the electrical grid, the combustion engine and its developments, the assembly line [manufacturing], those were technological breakthroughs that took place in those years. At the same time, you also had a stock market that was doing very well,” she said.
“What we're looking at now is galloping digitalization of our economies, with a particular focus on artificial intelligence. We’re seeing stock markets not doing extremely well. And we are seeing a fragmentation of geopolitics, which is accompanied by an increase of the tariff of the import and export restrictions in almost all categories of products.”
The session, moderated by Andrew R. Sorkin, editor and columnist at the New York Times, also hosted a select group of leading figures in finance, including Ken Griffin, founder and CEO of Citadel LLC; Laurence D. Fink, chair and CEO of BlackRock; and Adam Tooze, director of the European Institute at Columbia University.
Lagarde said the significant difference between the 1920s and the present day, which makes the current situation “more unpredictable,” was that the breakthroughs of the 1920s “could diffuse within boundaries, within national territories.”
“You did not necessarily, back in those days, [need] the scale, the network that you need now,” she said. “Now, if you ask the big spenders on AI: What do they need? They will say access to data, as large as possible. They will say scale, in order to really amortize the investment cost of the development of models.
“That would be significantly jeopardized if we have limited access to data because of different privacy laws around the world. And more protectionist barriers that would prevent the scaling of these investments.”
Lagarde said she was not denying that investment in artificial intelligence “can be extremely net positive.”
“It will deliver productivity gains, the amount of which is questionable and you have a spectrum that is quite large as to how much it will deliver,” she said. “We have to consider that it’s capital intensive, energy intensive, and data intensive. And we have to be mindful of the three. In terms of energy intensity, what kind of energy is being used to manage data will matter. What the consequences will be on the people will matter as well.”
The session was moderated by Andrew R. Sorkin, editor and columnist at the New York Times.
It also hosted a select group of leading figures in finance, including Ken Griffin, founder and CEO of Citadel LLC; Laurence D. Fink, chair and CEO of BlackRock; and Adam Tooze, director of the European Institute at Columbia University.
