ANALYSIS OF THE EXTERNAL DEMAND FOR EGYPTIAN ORANGE EXPORTS USING ALMOST IDEAL DEMAND SYSTEM

The agricultural foreign trade sector is one of the most important sectors that have a direct impact on the economic development programs. Oranges occupy the first place among Egyptian citrus varieties, with Egyptian production of about 3.014 million tons representing about 70.4% of the total citrus production of 4.3 million tons (2012-2016). Its productive area reached 294.5 thousand feddans representing about 68% of the total area of citrus fruits, which amounted to about 433 thousand feddans during the same period. The problem of the study is the volatility of the quantity of Egyptian exports of oranges during the period of study (2000-2017), which made the Egyptian exports of oranges face great competition from many countries in foreign markets, which may lose them in their foreign markets and allow the competition to win these markets, The available statistics indicate that the average production of Egyptian oranges was about 2.6 million tons as an average for the period 2005-2017. However, the quantity of exports is only 23.5% of this production. The   objective of the research is to analyze the structure of the demand for Egyptian exports of oranges by achieving two main objectives: The first aims to study the development of Egyptian exports of oranges and the main importing countries. The second deals with estimating the price and cross price elasticities through the almost ideal demand system for Egyptian orange. The research was based on the use of descriptive statistical analysis in the presentation and characterization of export prices of Egyptian orange, and the variables of quantities and prices of the most competitive countries in each of the studied markets, The econometric analysis was used to estimate the market model of the demand for Egyptian oranges in each of the markets studied using the Linear Almost Ideal Demand System (LAIDS) model. The research was based on UN.org data. Comtrade http: //, Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation, Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (2005-2017), as well as some scientific references related to the subject.