النظام التسويقي للصمغ العربي

Abstract

Abstract The problem of the study is mainly the instability of the of Gum Arabic production and exports, due to the ineffectiveness‘ of the pricing system and oligopsony at the level of the local markets and also lack of promotion and smuggling of Guln Arabic to the neighbouring countries in addition to imposing taxes and excise duties on Gum Arabic. A number of hypotheses is fonnulated to be tested by data collected-from secondary and primary sources. The most important hypotheses are that: the current marketing policies do not help in creating new markets for Gum Arabic and the instability of prices leads to the instability of production. Besides, there is high concentration in local Gum Arabic markets. Also, competition among producers in the international markets affects adversely the marketing of Gum Arabic.- _ To test the hypotheses, the researcher depended on secondary data collected from the reports and publications of Gum Arabic Company besides the primary data collected by using personal interviews witl1 key official of GAC and through the questionnaire distributed to producers and traders of Gum Arabic. The researcher reached some fruitful results, of these are that the pricing system of GAC is ineffective due to the fact that it concentrates on supply and neglects the competitors’ prices and the price of synthetic substitutes. GAC does not allocate a budget for promotion inspite of the fact it l1as a department for this purpose. Producers complain that the prices of Gum Arabic are declared late, which ‘affect the enthusiasm of the producers and discourage them to produce Gum Arabic. Some of the important recommendations are to enter new markets and expand through opening trade attach to assist in discovering the potential of foreign markets. Also the shift to manufacturing to make use of value added. - i Moreover, to expand the use of Gum Arabic in local industries, particularly food industries. ' Finally, to establish public companies to assume the responsibility of exporting manufactured Gum Arabic and retain the monopoly of Gum Arabic.