Regional Updates MEDITERRANEAN/MIDDLE EAST/NORTH AFRICA/AFRICA – MEA REGION The Muslim holy month of Ramadan will begin in the region on 11 or 12 March and will end on 9 or 10 April. Business, government, and banking working hours will be reduced during the Ramadan period. Egypt will be conducting a feasibility study on the expansion of the Suez Canal. The long term plan is to allow two lane traffic in the canal. About 80 km of the canal require work in order to double the traffic lanes. Egypt’s government announced that recent inflow of foreign currency in the country will allow it to release private-sector goods that have been stalled in ports due to non-payment. The Central Bank is working to expedite payment and clearanc...
What You Need to Know Today: CBOT markets pared Monday’s sharp losses as traders booked short profits and adjusted positions ahead of the Grain Stocks report that USDA will release Wednesday afternoon. The 7-day QPF forecast from NOAA now shows heavy rain across the central and western C...
Key Takeaways: Comparative advantage encourages countries to specialize in goods they can produce at a lower opportunity cost and rely on trade for others. Differences in climate, land, infrastructure, and technology help determine where agricultural commodities can be produced most efficientl...
Mediterranean/Middle East/North Africa/Africa – MEA Region Iran is reported to have completed its rail link from the border with Afghanistan to the Iranian port of Chabahar on the Gulf of Oman — the link is expected to be fully operational in early 2027. This will be Afghanistan&rsq...
From WPI Consulting
Communicating importance of value-added products
Facing increasing pressure to quantify the value of export promotion efforts to investors, a U.S. industry organization retained WPI to develop a quantitative model that better communicated the importance of exports. The resulting model concluded that value-added meat exports contributed $0.45 cents per bushel to the price of corn, increasing support for that sector’s financial support of WPI’s client. In addition to serving the red meat industry with this type of analysis, WPI has generated similar deliverables for the U.S. soybean and poultry/egg industries.