The Ministry of Trade: When the Government Itself Becomes an Obstacle to Exports!!

Muhannad Awad Mahmoud
In the previous article, we wrote about the ill-advised decision to merge the Ministries of Industry and Trade. We argued that industry’s overwhelming dominance left the trade portfolio without the weight it deserves in a country suffering from a foreign-exchange shortage and declining exports.
Today, we go further. Beyond impressions and what appears in the media, official correspondence on export matters reveals shortcomings that concern not only the ministry’s structure, but also decisions and procedures that directly affect Sudanese exports’ ability to compete and reach international markets.
Let us begin with lentils.
On 9 March 2026, the National Chamber of Exporters wrote to the Minister of Industry and Trade, under letter No. 0013/2026, protesting against the increase in the indicative price for lentils from US$375 to US$1,100 per tonne, without consultation or co-ordination with the Chamber. It warned of the decision’s impact on existing contracts and exporters’ ability to meet their obligations. The Chamber called for an urgent review of the price in line with international prices and market realities.
Here, we are not discussing a disagreement over a figure, but rather a philosophy of export management. If an indicative price exceeds what a commodity can actually fetch in an overseas market, an administrative decision does not increase export value; instead, it creates a gap the exporter must cover out of pocket to complete the export transaction.
Nor was the matter confined to lentils. The National Chamber of Exporters’ performance report documents an increase in the indicative price of watermelon seeds from US$650 to US$2,000 per tonne, while the Chamber was simultaneously calling for these increases to be reviewed and for indicative prices to be linked to international markets and commercial realities.
The situation becomes even more extraordinary when one considers that watermelon seeds were already facing difficulties in the Indian market, their largest importing market. The report documents efforts to address delays in opening the market, the formation of a committee to prepare a comprehensive memorandum on the commodity, and the proposal of a trade protocol to ensure stable, smooth exports.
In such circumstances, the Ministry of Trade should have acted through the instruments of trade and economic diplomacy—communicating with the relevant authorities in India, activating the role of the embassy and commercial bodies, and negotiating to remove obstacles and restore the smooth flow of the commodity. Yet while the commodity itself was still struggling to find its way into the market, its indicative price was raised from US$650 to US$2,000 per tonne.
The commodity is struggling to reach its market, while we raise its indicative price to more than three times its previous level. What kind of indifference is this?
This resembles a commercial coma more than mere weakness in follow-up, because market realities are moving in one direction while administrative decisions are moving in the opposite direction.
On 18 June 2026, the Exporters’ Section for watermelon seeds, hibiscus, pulses and lentils wrote to the Ministry’s Undersecretary, explaining that indicative prices no longer reflected prevailing prices in importing markets and that the gap between them and actual contract prices had weakened exporters’ competitiveness. The Section called for an urgent review of the prices, a meeting with the relevant bodies, and consideration of an official visit to India. It even expressed its willingness to bear the expenses of the proposed delegation.
In other words, the people who actually operate in the market did not merely object. They identified the problem, explained its consequences, proposed solutions and expressed their willingness to contribute to their implementation.
Then came August. On 10 August 2026, the National Chamber of Exporters wrote to the Minister about restructuring and activating commodity councils and reviewing indicative prices. It stressed the importance of ensuring these councils included government bodies, producers, and exporters so decisions could reflect market realities and actual costs.
Commodity councils are not ceremonial committees. The decision governing them assigns them, among other responsibilities, preparing studies and strategies to increase exports, monitoring foreign markets, providing databases, promoting Sudanese commodities, tracking global price movements, and advising exporters.
The irony is that the Ministry itself had to turn to the Chamber to obtain a copy of the decision establishing these councils!
We have consistently been among the strongest advocates of co-ordination between state institutions and the private sector. We have repeated this many times. But this case raises a different question: How can a chamber of commerce become the Ministry’s point of reference for a decision that lies at the very heart of the Ministry’s own work?
This is no longer simply a matter of a missing document in a file. It raises a legitimate question about institutional memory, record-keeping and continuity of work within a ministry supposedly responsible for managing the trade of an entire country.
Nor does this appear to be an isolated incident. The Chamber’s performance report documents a series of issues and communications relating to the smooth flow of exports. Among them is the matter of authenticating certificates of origin when the importer changes. The Chamber formally wrote to the Ministry’s Undersecretary on 5 October 2025, and the report states that the proposal had received no response by the time the report was prepared, despite the persistence of the problem and the resulting delays and additional costs to exporters.
We are therefore not discussing a single letter that received a delayed response or a decision that misjudged the situation. Rather, we face a pattern in managing the foreign trade portfolio that warrants serious scrutiny.
Commercial chambers and exporters’ associations are not public-relations bodies to be consulted after decisions have already been made. They know market prices, hold the contracts, and deal directly with buyers, banks, shipping companies, insurers, and ports. If the state wants to increase exports, it makes no sense to set a commodity’s price without genuinely consulting those who sell it in the global market, then later ask them to deal with the consequences.
Minister Mahasin Ali Yaqoub comes from the Ministry of Industry, and it is only natural that her principal interests, expertise, and activity lie in the industrial portfolio. Since her appointment, her media and field presence has clearly focused on industrial issues—from factory reactivation to industrial localisation and investment. There is nothing wrong with this; indeed, industry requires such effort and more after this war.
But who is managing trade?
That is the question raised by the facts outlined above. In a country where the dollar has exceeded 6,000 Sudanese pounds, we cannot discuss the foreign-exchange crisis in isolation from exports. Nor can we ask exporters to bring in dollars while imposing an indicative price higher than the market price, delaying solutions to their problems, and taking decisions that affect their competitiveness without adequate consultation with those who actually know the market.
In the previous article, we called for the immediate separation of the Ministries of Industry and Trade. Here, we do not repeat the arguments set out in that article; the facts above speak sufficiently for themselves.
We simply reiterate what Sudan’s foreign trade needs in a Minister of Trade: we need a minister who comes from the world of trade and has actually practised it—someone who has exported and imported, dealt with markets, banks, ports, shipping, insurance and buyers, and who understands from practical experience how markets are opened and how they are lost, and how a single administrative decision can make a Sudanese commodity unable to compete.
At this stage, the Ministry of Trade does not need more theorising, nor does it need someone learning about trade after entering the Ministry. It needs a statesman who understands trade because he has actually practised it.
The question that should occupy the government today is therefore not merely:
Why has the dollar exceeded 6,000 Sudanese pounds?
But rather:
What have we ourselves done to the exports that were supposed to bring in those dollars and thereby strengthen the value of the Sudanese pound?

Shortlink: https://sudanhorizon.com/?p=17338