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September 02, 2008
MENA Economic Futures, & Nitrogen
In honour of Ramadan and food (well not really Ramadan, but I just ate), an interesting FT arty to ponder: Middle East & North Africa - Economy: The food sector’s other growing need which discusses the importance of fertilizers in the global food production matrix and dealing with the relative shortfall of food production growth (or rather food reaching market growth), and ... MENA.
(a rather different angle than this)
There is, though, an additional dependence, as HSBC pointed out in a recent note. Many Middle Eastern countries, short of food and water, are large-scale exporters of a material that could enable those poor countries to grow crops to feed everyone – fertilisers.And here companies in the region find themselves in a sweet spot. Those with access to gas – an essential input for nitrogen-based fertilisers – are likely to do particularly well because they have negotiated long-term and generous supply contracts, the bank says.
An interesting item for pondering, although phosphates, I have been reading have some relative shortfalls in new discoveries, similar to petrol.
However, an added note: the journo is a bit geographically challenged here:
That is not to say Middle Eastern companies are not highly significant in the phosphates sector. Saudi Arabia and all the north African countries, in particular Morocco and Jordan, are rich in phosphates
Jordan.
Posted by The Lounsbury at September 2, 2008 05:13 PM
Filed Under: Economic Development
, MENA Region General
, North Africa
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