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Saudi Arabia Is World's Top Dates Exporter

Saudi Arabia was the world’s top exporter of dates in 2021. (SPA)
Saudi Arabia was the world’s top exporter of dates in 2021. (SPA)
TT
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Saudi Arabia Is World's Top Dates Exporter

Saudi Arabia was the world’s top exporter of dates in 2021. (SPA)
Saudi Arabia was the world’s top exporter of dates in 2021. (SPA)

Saudi Arabia was the world’s top exporter of dates in 2021, revealed Trendmap.

The Kingdom topped a list of 113 export countries, reaping 1.215 billion riyals (324 million dollars) from selling dates.

This means dates are among the most important sectors that help in raising national investments and exports, achieving one of the goals of Vision 2030.

The Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture revealed that Saudi Arabia produces and exports over 300 types of dates with production reaching 1.54 tons annually.

In a report, it said the season for producing dates begins in June and ends in November.

Saudi Arabia boasts the best quality dates and the ministry is working to transform the Kingdom into the world’s top producer, through improving the quality of production at farms and other measures.

Organic farms in the Kingdom adopt international food standards that ease the export process. Demand for dates as an organic product has risen in Europe, the United States and Japan.

This in turn has helped encourage investment to develop the palm and dates industry to make Saudi dates the world’s first choice for the product.

Saudi Arabia boasts 33 million palm trees. It produces various types of dates, including al-Barhi, al-Khudri, al-Khalas, al-Sukkari, al-Safawi, al-Safari, al-Ajwa, al-Anbara and others.

The ministry is working on establishing a comprehensive system of agricultural, logistic, marketing and information services to improve the local and international production and consumption of Saudi dates.

It has also proposed initiatives with United Nations agencies that have led to dates’ registration as a super fruit at the Food and Agriculture Organization, which declared 2027 the International Year of Dates.

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FILE PHOTO: European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde and Governor of the Bank of Finland Olli Rehn arrive at the non-monetary policy meeting of the ECB's Governing Council in Inari, Finnish Lapland, Finland February 22, 2023. Lehtikuva/Tarmo Lehtosalo via REUTERS//File Photo
FILE PHOTO: European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde and Governor of the Bank of Finland Olli Rehn arrive at the non-monetary policy meeting of the ECB's Governing Council in Inari, Finnish Lapland, Finland February 22, 2023. Lehtikuva/Tarmo Lehtosalo via REUTERS//File Photo
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ECB's Lagarde Renews Integration Call as Trade War Looms

FILE PHOTO: European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde and Governor of the Bank of Finland Olli Rehn arrive at the non-monetary policy meeting of the ECB's Governing Council in Inari, Finnish Lapland, Finland February 22, 2023. Lehtikuva/Tarmo Lehtosalo via REUTERS//File Photo
FILE PHOTO: European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde and Governor of the Bank of Finland Olli Rehn arrive at the non-monetary policy meeting of the ECB's Governing Council in Inari, Finnish Lapland, Finland February 22, 2023. Lehtikuva/Tarmo Lehtosalo via REUTERS//File Photo

European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde renewed her call for economic integration across Europe on Friday, arguing that intensifying global trade tensions and a growing technology gap with the United States create fresh urgency for action.
US President-elect Donald Trump has promised to impose tariffs on most if not all imports and said Europe would pay a heavy price for having run a large trade surplus with the US for decades.
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While Europe has made some progress, EU members tend to water down most proposals to protect vested national interests to the detriment of the bloc as a whole, Reuters quoted Lagarde as saying.
But this is taking hundreds of billions if not trillions of euros out of the economy as households are holding 11.5 trillion euros in cash and deposits, and much of this is not making its way to the firms that need the funding.
"If EU households were to align their deposit-to-financial assets ratio with that of US households, a stock of up to 8 trillion euros could be redirected into long-term, market-based investments – or a flow of around 350 billion euros annually," Lagarde said.
When the cash actually enters the capital market, it often stays within national borders or leaves for the US in hope of better returns, Lagarde added.
Europe therefore needs to reduce the cost of investing in capital markets and must make the regulatory regime easier for cash to flow to places where it is needed the most.
A solution might be to create an EU-wide regulatory regime on top of the 27 national rules and certain issuers could then opt into this framework.
"To bypass the cumbersome process of regulatory harmonization, we could envisage a 28th regime for issuers of securities," Lagarde said. "They would benefit from a unified corporate and securities law, facilitating cross-border placement, holding and settlement."
Still, that would not solve the problem that few innovative companies set up shop in Europe, partly due to the lack of funding. So Europe must make it easier for investment to flow into venture capital and for banks to fund startups, she said.