Morocco, with 21,000 hectares of greenhouses in the Souss Massa region alone, may become the second European Union supplier of tomatoes, regardless of competition, according to the Spanish horticulture magazine Aenverde.
With a growth rate of 0.8% per year, Almeria, Spain, now has 32,800 hectares covered in greenhouses, which is why Spain is still the EU’s first tomato provider.
Access to the ports of northern Europe is made simple by the investment made in Tanger-Med port, explained the same media.
Tomatoes also benefit from the central high-speed rail corridor through Algeciras, something Almeria is unable to achieve because there is no Mediterranean corridor, it further stated.
Moroccan exports of tomatoes are nearly comparable to those of Spain.
“Both the wintered area (almost 11,000 wintered hectares) and its associated production (878,000 tons) do not stop growing, year after year, at rates of 15% per year, which is why this crop in Almeria and Spain is under strong pressure due to Cost inflation, including labor, remains the African country’s main comparative advantage,” said Aenverde.
Moroccan labor costs about 10–12 dirhams per hour or about 1/8 of what it does in Almeria.
The kingdom has a free-of-charge entrance quota for tomatoes from October 1 through May 31. If there are more tomatoes than the specified amount in any given month, an additional 28,000 tons are added, for a total of around 285,000 tons.
If you go over this limit, you must pay “ad valorem duties” (tariffs) of 3.5%, which are already 60% lower than the initial 8.8% in the previous agreement.
In other words, Morocco has not adjusted the quota in years and does not object to paying that percentage, explained Aenverde.
Moroccan tomatoes are imported at a flat rate based on the import value, which is determined each day by the Commission using the weighted average of the indicative import prices by origin that are supplied by the Member States.
The issue here is that the cherry tomato, which is often offered at substantially higher costs than the traditional one, was included in the calculation for a short period of time.
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