THE MENA region - otherwise known as the Middle East and North Africa - has been identified as having the potential to be a significantly expanded market for Queensland-grown agricultural products.
Australia Milling Group chief executive officer Peter Wilson said Australia's trade with the MENA region was booming, having quadrupled over the past decade.
Mr Wilson was speaking following an Egyptian Roundtable event in Toowoomba last week which was also attended by Egyptian Ambassador Dr Hassan Hanafy Mahmoud El-Laithy.
The event was hosted by Toowoomba and the Surat Basin Enterprise with the aim of exploring export opportunities.
"Ultimately the MENA region imports the majority of the food it requires and our region exports most of its agricultural output," Mr Wilson said.
"So this allows for potentially powerful synergies to develop between our region, its products and MENA into the future."
Australia Milling Group already exports faba beans, red lentils and lupins into the market.
Mr Wilson, who is also chairman of Pulse Australia, said it was expected the MENA region would import well over $60 billion of food products by 2020.
"These markets are importing Australian pulses, cereal grains, and dairy and meat products on an increasing basis," Mr Wilson said.
"With careful governance, a stable Egypt will give rise to confident growth in this country and the region.
"We see an emerging Egypt offering more demand for high quality pulse crops into the future.
"We can derive the many legacy benefits of the mining boom as our economy confidently transitions across to the dining boom."
And this boom is only expected to grow with Egypt's plans to build a new capital city.
Egypt's current capital city Cairo's population has already surpassed 20 million, with a solution to cater to the growing population needed.
Egypt has ambitions to have the new city, anecdotally called 'The New Cairo', completed in five to seven years times, with the city to encompass 600 hospitals and clinics, a number of major theme parks, and 21 residential districts.
It is expected that the city's development, along with the growing population, will only further propel Egypt's demand for imported products.
