São Paulo – The director of International Relations of the Brazilian Agriculture and Livestock Confederation (CNA), Sueme Mori (pictured), said this Wednesday (6) that there is a prospect of an increased demand for agribusiness products from Arab countries in the coming years. At the press conference in which the institution presented the sector’s 2023 balance and prospects for 2024, she said some countries, such as China and other Asian and African nations, have a projection of growth in demand due to higher population and income. She said that is also reflected in Arab countries.
According to Mori, the Arab markets have increased their demand for food, an industry in which they are very dependent on external suppliers. “The outlook is very positive. This year, we received many delegations from Arab countries seeking collaboration to use Dubai as a processing hub and take advantage of the local government’s facilities to serve the region with products not produced there. The expectation is to increase [shipments] of products that are already [currently exported] and [start or expand sales of] products such as nuts, pecans, coffee, and use the structure they have to supply the region,” she said. She recalled that CNA has a branch office in Dubai.
Overall, although it considered 2023 a challenging year for agribusiness, the CNA showed growth in the sector’s exports, with an upturn in rice shipments and an increase in the competitiveness of sugar in the foreign market due to production disruptions caused by adverse weather conditions in Thailand and the world’s largest producer of the commodity, India.
According to data presented by Mori, Brazilian agribusiness exports had already surpassed, in October and in proportion to total Brazilian exports, the performance of the entire year of 2022. “We had a 3% growth in exports until October,” she said. The leading destinations pointed out by the CNA in 2023 were China, the European Union, the United States, Japan, and Argentina.
Year to date through October, Brazil’s agribusiness exports totaled USD 140 billion, with prospects of reaching USD 164 billion, with highlights to soybean, which grew 10.7%, sugar, with an expansion of 31.7%, and maize, with a 21.4% increase, said the confederation. Coffee sales fell 16.3%, and fresh beef sales dropped 25.2%.
The outlook is that 2024 will be challenging, as commodity prices are expected to plateau, and consumption is unlikely to increase significantly. CNA’s technical director, Bruno Lucchi, said the output of the soybean harvest in December and January is still unknown. However, if it is lower than the last, it would directly and negatively impact the production of the maize harvest.
“We had a record harvest, in which we reached over 320 million tonnes (in 2023), good weather, except for severe drought in Rio Grande do Sul, but in the country overall, it was positive. Nevertheless, we said it would be an expensive harvest, and it was. It was a year characterized by very narrow margins in both agriculture and livestock,” said Lucchi. The president of the CNA, João Martins, said that this “was not an easy year” for Brazilian agriculture.
Translated by Elúsio Brasileiro
