The Impact of the COMESA and Mercosur Agreements on the Egyptian Agricultural Trade Balance " أثر اتفاقية الكوميسا والميركسور علي الميزان التجاري الزراعي المصري"

Egypt has moved to strengthen its economic relations at the regional, international and bilateral levels, as
Egypt has signed many free trade agreements, with the aim of trying to benefit from these agreements, due to
the resulting commercial advantages of preferential treatment for the members of these agreements, and
therefore Egypt is trying to increase the volume of its trade. Foreign Affairs with the agreement countries, and
opening more markets for their exports, as an attempt to reduce the ongoing deficit in their agricultural trade
balance. Therefore, the study aimed to analyze and measure the impact of the COMESA and Mercosur
agreements on the Egyptian agricultural trade balance. The study reached a number of research results, the
most important of which is that the agricultural trade balance between Egypt and COMESA during the period
(2008-2022) achieves a surplus in favor of Egypt, while the agricultural trade balance between Egypt and
Mercosur during the same period suffers from a severe deficit, as shown by the results of the model. The
attractiveness between Egypt and COMESA: There is a direct effect of Egypt’s GDP on the agricultural trade
balance surplus between Egypt and COMESA, while there is an inverse effect of COMESA’s GDP, the
geographical distance between Egypt and COMESA, and Egypt’s exchange rate on the agricultural trade
balance between Egypt and COMESA during the period studied. The results of the gravity model between
Egypt and Mercosur showed that there is a direct effect of the gross domestic product of the Mercosur
countries on the agricultural trade deficit between Egypt and Mercosur, while there is an inverse effect for
Egypt’s GDP, the geographical distance between Egypt and Mercosur, and Egypt’s exchange rate, and among
the most important recommendations of the research. An attempt to study the demand for various agricultural
commodities for the most important Mercosur countries in an attempt to provide their needs, and increase
Egypt’s exports of those commodities to the Mercosur countries, which helps to address the deficit in the
agricultural trade balance between Egypt and the Mercosur countries.