Morocco imported 103,000 tones of dates during 2023-2024, the same level as in the previous season, but higher than the average of the three seasons preceding that, East Fruit reported on Thursday.
Morocco’s imports might not top the 2022–2023 season’s numbers in 2024, however. Morocco’s Ministry of Agriculture expects domestic date production to rise by 7% in 2023 to around 115,000 tons.
Typically, Morocco’s highest date import volumes coincide with Ramadan celebrations. Import volumes usually peak in the lead-up to and during Ramadan.
Since Ramadan falls in a different month every year, date import volumes are also adjusted. As a result, the 2023–24 season’s high for date imports was in February, indicating that subsequent months would probably see lower numbers than the year before.
Morocco is the world’s second-largest importer of dates, after India. In Morocco, dates continue to be the most popular fruit and vegetable import.
Four nations account for about 90% of date exports: Algeria, Egypt, Tunisia, and the United Arab Emirates. Among those, the UAE is the largest producer.
But Egypt could outperform the UAE in the Moroccan market this season due to a rapid increase in overall shipments of dates to Morocco.
Egypt surpassed its previous record in the 2022–2023 season, shipping 33,000 tons of dates to the Moroccan market between October 2023 and March 2024.