Increasing Agricultural Productivity:
Encouraging Foreign Direct Investments in the COMCEC Region
14
Table 5: COMCEC Member Countries among the World Top 20 Producers per Commodity
(2010)
Commodities Cocoa Coffee Cotton Maize
Natural
Rubber
Palm
Oil Rice Soybean
Sugar
Beet Tea Wheat
Afghanistan 20
Bangladesh 4 11
Burkina Faso 14
Cameroon 6 14 13
Cote d'Ivoire 1 11 8 8
Egypt 12 13 12 15
Gabon 20
Guinea 17 19
Indonesia 2 4 8 2 1 3 10 7
Iran 18 14 10 14
Kazakhstan 18 10
Malaysia 13 3 2
Mozambique 20 18
Nigeria 4 13 10 9 3 18 11
Pakistan 4 18 12 6
Sierra Leona 16
Syria 8
Tajikistan 17
Togo 8
Turkey 7 12 6 5 8
Turkmenistan 9
Uganda 19 12 13
Uzbekistan 6 18
1.6 Source: SESRIC. Agricultural Trade
Achieving long-term growth in certain agricultural commodities can result in additional
investments in agro-processing industries, packaging industries and other auxiliary services
such as quality control, research and development, and university programs. Therefore the
multiplier effects of the agricultural sectors are invaluable. Despite agricultural powerhouses
such as Indonesia, the COMCEC Member Countries as a whole are still net importers of
agricultural products.
Figure 7 shows that there are significant differences in the COMCEC Region in terms of
agricultural trade balance. The COMCEC Member Countries in Asia are net exporters; however,
African and Arab Member Countries are net importers. Overall, imports exceeded exports by
almost 48 percent in the COMCEC region in 2012.
In many COMCEC Member Countries, the agricultural sector is the main source of income for
their population. Agriculture is also the sector with the greatest potential to reduce poverty in
many COMCEC Member Countries. The statistics, as outlined by the World Food Programme,
warn that in many COMCEC Member Countries there is a pressing need for more and better
access to food.