Direct agricultural exports to Russia

CMA-CGM cooperates with Ministry, farmers

The CMA-CGM Container Shipping Group has announced efforts to help farmers in the Bekaa export their produce to Russia. CMA-CGM, the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), and a delegation of farmers will fly to Russia next May to set up the necessary preparations with officials there.

Farmers have recently faced problems in shipping fruits and vegetables to the Gulf through the Syrian-Jordanian border. Bernard Gerdy, General Manager of CMA-CGM (Lebanon), said: “Farmers asked us to help them ship their produce by sea. And although it is taking a little more time, we are exporting produce through refrigerated containers.”

Arab and North African countries such as Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, and Algeria already export their agricultural produce to Russia. CMA-CGM held a meeting with the MoA and proposed to open a direct shipping path to Russia. Gerdy said: “Russia is a major consumer market: We recently sent 500 containers of tomatoes to Russia from Morocco.” Apart from that, Lebanese agricultural exports to Russia are nearly inexistent.