AN ECONOMIC STUDY OF OLIVE CROP IN EGYPT

Despite of the great healthy advantages of ol-ive crop whereas it protects human from arterio-sclerosis, heart diseases and blood cycle diseases, the interest of the Egyptian consumer to buy and use it is weak, except in its production regions. This is, because the Egyptian consumer is not used to it and because of its high prices which vary from L.E 12 to 18 per kilogram for the good varie-ties and from L.E 20 to 30 per kilogram for excel-lent varieties, and in the shadow of the decrease in the produced amounts from cotton seed oil due to the recent decrease in cotton production and there is no main source in enough degree to depend on, to restrict our imports from oil in general and from olive oil in particular. The problem of research is restricted in recognizing the nature of olive crop market in Egypt and also the status quo of food gap from it, and out of this standpoint, the re-search aimed at analyzing the current structure of production and consumption of olive crop and olive oil and also the structure of its foreign trade along with shading a light on the relative ad-vantages of this crop, and the competitive situation of the Egyptian olive in the international market. And for achieving research aims, the inductive method was depended on, in the economic analy-sis and also econometric methods were used, also the scientific references and obtaining the neces-sary data of analysis from different resources dur-ing the period (1991–2004) were depended on. The analysis results showed that there is a signifi-cant increase in evolution of total area, production area, productivity, and production of olive during study period. In regard to the most important gov-ernorates in olive production, it is shown that Fay-oum governorate occupied the first grade in re-garding cultivated area followed by Matrouh, North Sinai, Nobaria, Ismaelia and Cairo respec-tively during 2004, while Matrouh governorate occupied the first grade in regarding production area and followed by Fayoum, Nobaria, North Sinai, Giza and Ismaelia respectively, but from the productivity respect, El Behira occupied the first grade and followed by Bennisweef, Giza and Monofia respectively. And by studying some indi-cators of food gap of olive and olive oil in Egypt, it is shown from analysis that there is a significant increase in evolution of oil consumption and the increasing rate of the annual consumption is slightly equals its counterpart related to production evolution, i.e. more than 95% of national produc-tion is directed basically to consumption. In regard to studying some foreign trade indicators of olive crop and olive oil in Egypt during the period (1990 – 2004), it is shown from analysis that there is an oscillation in the amount and value of olive oil exports up and down during the first and sec-ond stages of the study and this appears from the suitability of the cubic figure to express the evolu-tion of both. By studying average export price of olive oil, it is shown that there was a statistical significant decrease during the study period. As for the import price, there was an oscillation along