Solution: sell grain for $136.00 a bushel.
Saudi Arabia is a huge import market for food and agricultural products. Imports from the United States reached a record $131 million in calendar 2005 but this trend is increasing even more. With a young and growing population, Saudi Arabia will continue to be a growth market for U.S. food products in the years to come.
In the following comments, the focus is on the imports during 2007 and specifically on imports made during January 2008.
According to a recent report by the Central Department of Statistics and Information (CDSI), Saudi imports increased in 2007 by 29% to reach SR338.1 billion. Moreover, another detailed report by CDSI showed additional details about imports during each month, the most recent one is for January 2008, which showed that imports has increased by 20% compared to January 2007.
Amongst the commodities that Saudi Arabia imports from abroad, the most important items included foodstuffs which increased significantly as well by 44% in the past year.
I note with interest that the value of imports such as foodstuffs has had a large increase, which might be explained by the global rise in food prices, leading to increase the share of foodstuff imports among total imports and its total value.
Amongst the countries that Saudi Arabia imported from during January 2008, the US continues to be the lead country, followed by China instead of Germany, which used to be ranked No.2, Japan has maintained the third rank.
The change in the value of imports from main partners when comparing January 2008 to January 2007 is as follows:
United States: 53%
Japan: 8%.
I wonder why our politicians don't tell us that the Saudis need us more than we need them.
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