Morocco Bans Olive Oil Exports in Bid to Control Rising Prices

Morocco’s agri­cul­ture min­istry has approved a decree to ban olive oil exports to stem sky­rock­et­ing prices on the domes­tic mar­ket.

The announce­ment makes Morocco the third major olive oil-pro­duc­ing coun­try to imple­ment an export ban after offi­cials in Turkey took sim­i­lar mea­sures in August, fol­lowed by Syria in September.

Officials in both coun­tries also cited ris­ing olive oil prices in their deci­sions to imple­ment the export pro­hi­bi­tions.

Currently, one liter of olive oil in Morocco retails from any­where between 120 and 150 dirhams (€11 to €14), roughly 64 per­cent higher than the aver­age price of August 2022. Morocco’s aver­age monthly salary after tax is about 3,900 dirhams (€360).

Rachid Benali, pres­i­dent of the Moroccan Olive Interprofessional, said the mea­sure aims to ​“pro­tect the pur­chas­ing power of Moroccan con­sumers.”

Despite a poor har­vest last year, which the gov­ern­ment blamed on drought, Morocco remains Africa’s sec­ond-largest olive oil pro­ducer and exporter behind Tunisia.

According to data from the International Olive Council, the coun­try pro­duced 156,000 tons of olive oil and exported 28,000 tons in the 2022/23 crop year.

Officials in the agri­cul­ture min­istry attrib­uted the ris­ing olive oil prices in the coun­try to short­ages across the Mediterranean fol­low­ing the low­est level of global pro­duc­tion since the 2016/17 crop year.

While farm­ers and offi­cials in Morocco are hope­ful that the com­ing har­vest will exceed the pre­vi­ous one, global prices are expected to con­tinue ris­ing, with another very poor har­vest antic­i­pated in Spain, the world’s largest pro­ducer.

Even as offi­cials seek to lower prices at home, Morocco’s deci­sion to ban exports could con­tribute to fur­ther price increases in Europe.

According to data from Spain’s Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism, roughly 3 per­cent of the coun­try’s total olive oil imports came from Morocco in the first seven months of 2023. Meanwhile, 11 per­cent came from Turkey and 2.5 per­cent from Syria in the same period.

Making up 16.5 per­cent of Spanish imports in the first seven months of 2023, nearly 18 mil­lion kilo­grams of olive oil, some offi­cials warn that the com­bined bans will fur­ther limit sup­ply and keep upward pres­sure on near-record prices.

“If a sup­plier stops sup­ply­ing peo­ple who do not have as much, let’s say that the sit­u­a­tion that exists at the moment wors­ens, and there is a lower avail­abil­ity of oil in the mar­ket, con­se­quently,” Rafael Pico Lapuente, the exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Spanish Association of Olive Oil Exporters, Industry and Commerce (Asoliva), told The Objective.

• Agence Ecofins
• The Objective
• Morocco World News