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Voices are increasing in the Arab and Islamic world to boycott French products, due to the tension caused by the issue of offensive cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
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In light of the calls for a boycott, what is the commercial importance of the Arab and Islamic countries for France?
Data from ITC Trade, a United Nations project, showed that France’s total exports to the world’s countries last year amounted to 555.1 billion dollars, more than half a trillion dollars.
France’s exports to seven Arab countries last year totaled about $ 29 billion, the most prominent of which went to Morocco and Algeria.
The volume of trade between Algeria and France in 2019 reached about 10,209 million dollars, of which exports from France to Algeria accounted for 5,513 million dollars, compared to 4,696 million dollars of imports.
This means that the trade balance is in favor of Paris at $ 817 million.
With Morocco, trade last year reached about 11.58 billion dollars, of which 5.336 billion dollars were French exports to Morocco.
The trade exchange between France and Tunisia in 2019 reached around $ 9 billion, and French product exports to Tunisia accounted for almost $ 3.8 billion.
France’s exports to Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt amount to about $ 14 billion, most of it to Qatar, reaching $ 4.295 billion.
The trade balance between France and Qatar is in favor of Paris at $ 3.537 billion, as France imports goods worth only $ 758 million from Qatar, compared to exports worth $ 4.295 billion.
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The trade balance is also tilting in favor of Paris in its trade with the United Arab Emirates at $ 1,929 billion, as France exports more goods to the United Arab Emirates than it imports from them at $ 1,929 billion (exports of $ 3,647 billion, imports of $ 1,718 billion)
Exports of French products to Saudi Arabia last year amounted to $ 3.361 billion, and to Egypt, the value of $ 2.575 billion.
It should be noted in the data from the ITC trade site that France’s exports to Turkey in 2019 amounted to around $ 6.655 billion, and taking into account Paris’s trade with the Arab countries mentioned above, we find that France’s exports to the eight countries (Turkey, Algeria, Morocco, Qatar, Tunisia, the Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt) last year reached 35 billion dollars.
The calls for a boycott came after the theme of the Prophet Muhammad cartoons resurfaced after a young man of Chechen origin killed a history teacher in France, cutting off his head with a knife.
Various sources said the attack came after the teacher showed his students cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
Faced with these events, French President Emmanuel Macron delivered a speech in which he described the history professor as “the face of the republic”, promising that France would not abandon cartoons, while describing Islamists in France as separatists, aimed at taking further measures to prevent the spread of extremism among Muslims in the country.
Source: RT
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