The date industry in Jordan is seeing steady growth, says Ayham Fakheralden, a representative of Spectra Dates, a date exporter from Jordan: "The area planted with date palms in Jordan is about 4,500 hectares, and the rate of increase in areas and production is estimated at about 10-15% annually. The current number of trees is estimated at about 750 thousand trees. Production quantities amount to about 35,000 tons of various types, including about 22,000 tons of Medjoul dates and the rest are Barhi and other types. This represents about 14% of the estimated global production of Medjoul dates."
According to Fakheralden massive money is being invested in the date industry in Jordan. "The volume of direct and indirect investment in the Jordanian dates sector exceeds more than half a billion dollars, and the annual working capital is estimated at about 60 million dollars, an increase of about 10 million over last year. The number of workers in the sector is about 10,000 job opportunities, including about 40% female workers, and the annual growth rate is estimated at about 15% in this field. Jordan is considered the country with the highest export percentage of local production, 65% of dates."
One specific variety is seeing much more demand than before, Fakheralden explains: "We have noticed greater demand year after year for Jordanian Medjoul dates, which is ranked as one of the most prestigious dates in the world. Many countries were hardly consuming any dates and only recently started to import the product, thanks to its valuable nutrition. Jordan exports Medjoul dates to about 24 countries."
"Water and skilled laborers were major challenges for growing Medjoul Dates in Jordan, so we have invested a lot of money and resources to train fresh staff, who have also studied the trees' actual needs for water and installed certain systems to control water and to save it from any waste. Jordan and our farm will continue to grow 10% to 15% per year, as we're planting new trees, while at the same time, many of our trees are still not fully mature yet," Fakheralden concludes.
For more information:
Ayham Fakheralden
Spectra Dates - Naouri Group Company
Tel: +962-6-500-4447
Mobile: +962-79-558-3180
Ayham.fakheralden@naouri.com
www.spectra-jo.com