Morocco: The EU’s Main Destination for Fruit and Vegetables

With a total of nearly 860,000 tons of vegetable products, Europe is Morocco’s main customer.

The European Union has now become the leading import market for Moroccan fruit and vegetables, L’Economiste reports that “Spain remains the main buyer, especially of tomatoes and more particularly of products with high added value, such as cherry and grape tomatoes”.

Thus, as the newspaper states, “EU fruit and vegetable imports from Morocco increased by 4% in 2019 compared to 2018, totaling 1.4 million tonnes”. Vegetable products alone accounted for 859,095 tonnes in 2019, including 481,706 tonnes of tomatoes (+7%). Over a longer period (5 years), “imports of Moroccan vegetables into the EU have increased by 26% and fruit by 53.6%,” the daily reports that last week acts of vandalism targeted trucks transporting Moroccan goods to Spain.

The Economist points out that Spain remains one of the main markets for Moroccan exports, with no less than 267,360 tonnes of Moroccan vegetables imported in 2019, up 10%. The same is true for fruit imports, which rose by 4% to 162,939 tonnes. Furthermore, the increase in Spanish vegetable and fruit imports reaches 62% and 126% respectively. Another progression, that of exports of fresh and processed agricultural products which have almost doubled over the period 2010-2018, rising to 57.7 billion DH.

The newspaper notes that the volume of exports of food products reaches about 3.1 million tons. This makes the sector the second largest source of foreign exchange for the country. “Better, the food trade balance shows, for the second consecutive year, a surplus,” notes L’Economist adding that the trend should continue over the coming years.