CURRENT AND EXPECTED ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF GLOBAL ENERGY AND FOOD ON THE MOST IMPORTANT EGYPTIAN IMPORTS

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Economic Dept., Fac. Agric., Ain Shams Univ., Shoubra El-Kheima, Cairo, Egypt

2 Agricultural Economic Research Institute, Agricultural Research Center, Giza, Egypt

Abstract

The study aimed at studying economic effects of global energy and food on the most important Egyptian imports. Descriptive and analytical statistical methods were used to achieve study objectives. Mathematical averages percentages and annual growth rates of variables under study were estimated. Expected values of imported food commodities using double exponential smoothing method was used.
The study reached to some important conclusions, namely
Global price and production of oil, coal, natural gas, ethanol and biodiesel have risen during the period 1996-2011. There were also a significant relationship between world prices and production of the above products. The price elasticities were about 0.089, 0.32, 0.174, 0.062, and 2.5 for these products respectively.
The increase of oil price has an impact on food imports showing an increase of about 3.46% as a result of 10%of oil price increase.
The study revealed that world oil price will be about $133.2/ a barrel in the year 2015 compared with $112.9/ barrel in the year 2011. It is therefore expected that value of food imports will increase to about $ 12.9 billion in the year 2015 compared to $ 10.6 billion in 2011.

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