While Egyptians look forward to the Ramadan arrival of reasonably priced Sudanese meat, some Sudanese meat merchants are grumbling, writes Gamal Nkrumah On Wednesday 22 September, Egypt and Sudan signed an agreement whereby Sudanese meat would be sold in Egypt on a regular basis. Signing on behalf of the Sudanese government was Abdul-Hamid Moussa Kasha, the minister of trade. On the Egyptian side Supply Minister Hassan Khedr and International Cooperation Minister Faiza Abul-Naga signed the agreement. The first consignment of Sudanese meat is scheduled to arrive in Egypt on 15 October, just in time for Ramadan. Fouad Ibrahim, the economic attaché at the Sudanese Embassy in Cairo, told Al-Ahram Weekly that two public sector companies -- one Egyptian and the other Sudanese, and both associated with the respective countries' armed forces -- will be involved in the deal. "The first consignment, around 3,000 tonnes, is to be sold to Egypt at $1,200 per tonne," Ibrahim said. According to the Sudanese Embassy official, there will be five planeloads of beef coming in per week. "Each flight holds about 40 tonnes of freshly-slaughtered Sudanese beef. According to the agreement, Egypt will eventually import between 20,000-30,000 tonnes of Sudanese beef annually. The meat will arrive in batches of around 200 tonnes weekly." The Sudanese beef will be sold in government-run coop grocery stores at the relatively affordable price of LE15.5 per kilo. Selling the Sudanese meat on the black market at higher prices would be considered a criminal offence. Meat sales traditionally rise in Ramadan; this year, with the prices of meat skyrocketing, this valuable source of animal protein has become prohibitively expensive for the ordinary consumer. In up market butcher shops beef now costs LE30-35 a kilo, and veal LE35-40 a kilo. While Egyptian consumers currently gobble up more than 250,000 tonnes of Sudanese beef, both the Egyptian and Sudanese authorities believe the market can easily absorb at least twice as much. Egypt has also traditionally imported large quantities of Sudanese camel meat, and Egyptian consumers are now urging the authorities to consider brokering a similar deal with Sudan on camel meat, now that the cost of a camel has quadrupled in the past decade to reach its current $500 price. On Sunday, an Egyptian veterinary team left Cairo for Khartoum to inspect the Sudanese meat destined for the Egyptian market. The team visited several slaughterhouses, livestock farms and meat factories to make sure that the cattle earmarked for slaughter was free of disease. Sudanese cattle, which typically graze on grass, are considered leaner and safer than other imported meat. To make doubly sure that the Sudanese meat Egypt imports is of high quality, the Egyptian authorities signalled to their Sudanese counterparts that they prefer to buy beef that is slaughtered in Sudan at Egyptian- government approved abattoirs. Although Rift Valley fever, a disease that periodically spreads in Horn of Africa countries including Sudan, can decimate the number of cattle available, it is not regarded as potentially dangerous for meat consumers as bovine spongiform encephaopathy or BSE (better known as Mad Cow). The Egyptian veterinary team said they approved the Sudanese meat, which met the highest international standards. They also said that they were satisfied with Sudan's health and quarantine measures. The Egyptian media had in the past speculated about the quality of Sudanese meat, with some papers claiming that Sudan lacked proper quarantine regulations. Egypt's Supply Minister Khedr said that the imported Sudanese meat would be specially packaged with a distinctive brand that will distinguish it from local Egyptian meat. He also noted that Sudan's geographical proximity to Egypt makes Sudanese beef an attractive alternative to meat imports from countries further away. Currently around 80 per cent of Sudanese beef goes to Saudi Arabia, but Egypt is poised to emerge as an important market as well. The chairman of the Sudanese Livestock and Meat Exporters Federation Siddig Haddoub, however, told the Weekly that the monopolisation of the meat trade by public sector companies is not in the Egyptian consumer's interest. "We, the Sudanese private sector, have been involved in the Egyptian market for more than 50 years. We know the consumer's demands and preferences. I do not understand why the Egyptian authorities are insisting on doing business with the Sudanese public sector, when we have the know-how and the experience," Haddoub said. He speculated that the air freight costs of the current deal would be exorbitant. "We have long argued that Sudanese livestock and meat exports be shipped by train from Khartoum to Halfa, a provincial Sudanese town on the Egyptian- Sudanese border, or down the river Nile to Qustul, a river port. Alternatively, Sudanese livestock and meat can be shipped by sea from Port Sudan on the Red Sea to Suez and on to Cairo by road," Haddoub explained. "These modes of transport -- rail, river and sea -- are 30 per cent the cost of air freight. The prices specified in the deal were unrealistic to begin with." According to Haddoub, in order to fulfil its part of the deal, the Sudanese government bought third rate meat of very poor quality. "This will give Sudanese beef a bad image. Had they bought the first grade quality meat, it would have cost $2500 per tonne rather than $1400. The Egyptian consumer could have tasted quality Sudanese meat had the Egyptian government dealt with the Sudanese private sector instead of with the Sudanese government," he said. "There is no transparency in the government's dealings." Kamal Ibrahim, a Sudanese meat merchant based in Cairo, suggested that, "the whole deal was motivated by political considerations, because it does not make much economic sense." Ibrahim told the Weekly that he "urges our brethren in Egypt to do business with the private sector, with the merchants who best understand the dynamics of the Sudanese meat trade". Both Sudanese and Egyptian officials dismissed the independent Sudanese meat merchants' claims as "gross exaggerations.
