Senior diplomatic, marketing and technical officials from Ireland have been in Egypt this week in another attempt to rebuild the €250 million beef trade between the two countries.
While the Egyptian market has been "politically" open to Irish beef exporters since 2002 following the lifting of a ban on Irish imports because of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) concerns in 2000, only limited amounts of Irish beef have been imported there.
Prior to the BSE crisis, the Egyptian beef and live cattle trade had been Ireland's largest non-EU outlet.
The ban on Irish beef and live cattle imports in 2000 allowed Australian, Brazilian and Indian exports into the Egyptian market and up until now they have not been dislodged.
The Minister for Agriculture and Food, Mr Walsh, said yesterday that a team of senior officials from his department, along with Bord Bia and the Irish Embassy in Egypt, have been holding a seminar in Cairo this week as part of an initiative aimed at building further confidence in Irish beef. Up to 100 key people in the food industry are attending the seminar.
The farming organisations, which have been critical of the Government's handling of the issue, sought and received assurances in the partnership agreement that there would be renewed efforts made to reopen the Egyptian market.