Proceedings of the 13 th Meeting of the
COMCEC Agriculture Working Group
14
 The lack of entrepreneurship in agriculture, fragmented lands, and continuing irrigation
problems are major sources of concern despite the successes.
 Morocco has a great potential as a major fish exporter to serve the OIC markets, and has
strong agricultural trade prospects with North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa.
The Gambia
Prof. SAYAN mentioned that, as of 2016, the GDP share of agriculture in The Gambia is 17% and
that the largest portions of agricultural exports and imports are in agri-food products. He stated
that 24% of The Gambia’s agricultural exports are to the OIC destinations and 33% of imports are
from the OIC origins.
Prof. SAYAN also listed the top agricultural trade partners of The Gambia. As of 2016, the top 5
export destinations were China, Guinea-Bissau, India, Vietnam, and Senegal, and the top 5 import
origins were Brazil, Malaysia, Indonesia, USA, and Netherlands.
The main messages originating from the key informant interviews conducted in the Gambia were
as follow:
 Creating a more favorable environment for producers through productivity increases is a
major policy objective.
 The ultimate goal is a commercialized, efficient, and competitive agricultural sector for
sustainable development.
 Twomajor bottlenecks with respect to food security are lowproductivity- or no-production
of staple foods such as rice and farmers’ inability to access credit opportunities.
 Several initiatives exist to support the supply chains (with the involvements of FAO, World
Bank, etc.).
 The spectrum of agricultural products to be exported is highly restricted (such as peanuts
and cashews).
 Major problems that restrict agricultural exports are limited food processing facilities and
the lack of accredited laboratories.
Chad
Prof. SAYAN underlined that the desk study OIC country Chad has a high share of agriculture in GDP
(almost equal to 50%) and a large agricultural trade deficit. The country has only 2 FTAs with OIC
countries currently in force. Prof. SAYAN also stressed that the data reliability problem regarding
agricultural trade policy measures is a major problem for Chad.
Thailand and Brazil
The non-OIC desk study countries Thailand and Brazil were also discussed by Prof. SAYAN. He
stated that both countries have a similar profile; having low shares of agriculture in GDP (less than
10%) and large agricultural trade surpluses. Prof. SAYAN emphasized that both countries have
large numbers of FTAs/PTAs with OIC countries but generally face high tariff rates imposed by the
OIC countries in agricultural products.