KRG bans egg exports to central, southern Iraq amid shortages

Rudaw
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The KRG is set to decide to impose a ban on eggs being exported for the Kurdish cities to the central and southern Iraqi provinces in a bid to help decrease the price of the food item, an official said on Saturday.

The KRG's move comes after Baghdad decided to ban the importation of eggs from Turkey, Iran, and the Ukraine in May, leading to a hike in egg prices in the Kurdistan Region.


The Iraqi parliament passed a bill on May 5, calling for the ban of the importation of eggs from outside of Iraq, in order to boost their local poultry product market.

Nawzad Adhad, head of the department of trade at the KRG's Ministry of Industry and Trade, told Rudaw that the Kurdistan Region will put the export ban into effect within the next few days, "in order to prevent any further hikes in egg prices in the Kurdistan cities."


Adham added "in each province there is an economics committee. They will make the decisions and order the checkpoints to ensure eggs from the Kurdistan won’t be exported [to other provinces of Iraq]."

Baghdad’s decision in May increased the price of one tray of eggs from 3,500 Iraqi dinars to 5,500 dinars in the Kurdistan Region, according to the KRG Ministry of Trade.


There are 11 egg producing farms in Erbil and Duhok provinces, producing a total of 1.3 billion eggs every year, according to the ministry’s latest data. 


"The Baghdad decision to ban the importation of eggs from Turkey into the Kurdistan Region led to a considerable increase in the price of eggs," Soran Abdulghafur Aziz, head of the Sulaimani Trade Monitor Department, told Rudaw.

Shopkeepers say the Baghdad decision has affected their sales. 

"We are selling eggs on retail and wholesale and we buy them from companies. But because eggs are banned from coming from Turkey, the number of eggs has plummeted," Hawzhin Salim, a shopkeeper in Sulaimani, said.

Post- October 16 tensions between Erbil and Baghdad led to the imposition of internal customs borders between the Kurdistan Region and the rest of federal Iraq. Importers were often taxed twice when moving goods – first at the international border and again at the internal border.

Now that relations have improved, the internal taxes have been removed, unifying the customs regime. 
  

However, Iraq and the Kurdistan Region have long depended on cheap foreign food imports from Turkey, Iran, and elsewhere, harming local farming and manufacturing.

During the holy month of Ramadan, Baghdad banned the importation of cheaper foreign date imports, leading to a price hike in the Kurdistan Region’s markets.

In January 2016, Baghdad also banned the import of eggs and poultry products in January 2016 from two dozen countries, because of avian flu threats.