National Companies Are Supporting the Smuggling of Gum Arabic!

Muhannad Awad Mahmoud
Yes, the headline is correct. According to information circulating in the gum arabic market, Sudanese companies and investors have begun purchasing gum arabic through intermediaries in South Sudan, paying for it in hard currency, and then transporting it along export routes to Kenya’s Port of Mombasa.
At first glance, these companies appear to be the primary culprits. They provide a gum market that has left Sudan and inject foreign currency into purchasing it, particularly as the cost of a tonne of certain grades, depending on the transaction, can exceed US$3,500.
But before blaming these companies, we should ask the more important question: who made Sudanese gum arabic more commercially attractive once it leaves Sudan than when it remains inside the country?
At that point, the finger of blame should shift from the companies to the government, particularly the Ministry of Trade.
Sudan’s gum arabic belt extends across large parts of the country. The most important production areas are concentrated in Kordofan and Darfur, with additional production in White Nile, Sennar, Blue Nile, Gedaref, and other regions.
Today, significant parts of the production and trading areas lie in territories controlled by what the author describes as the terrorist Rapid Support Forces militia, or in areas directly affected by the war, while other producing regions remain under state control.
In both cases, the cost of moving gum arabic to traditional assembly markets such as El Obeid, Kosti and Omdurman, and then transporting it onward to Port Sudan, has risen sharply because of road insecurity, higher transport costs, fees and multiple levies.
The result is a paradox that should command the government’s attention: transporting gum arabic southwards into South Sudan and then through another country to Mombasa, despite the much greater geographical distance, has become economically viable.
This is not merely a smuggling problem. It is evidence of an economic distortion that has made the geographically longer route commercially shorter.
Even so, I do not place primary responsibility on Sudanese companies.
Capital moves towards profitability, security, simpler procedures and lower costs. I have previously written about the migration of Sudanese capital to countries that offered greater stability and a better business environment.
We cannot reasonably ask a business person to choose the more expensive route merely to demonstrate patriotism. If we want him to choose Port Sudan rather than Mombasa, we simply have to make Port Sudan the more commercially viable option.
This raises several questions for the Ministry of Trade.
Has the Ministry monitored the movement of gum arabic across the border with South Sudan and established the volume leaving the country?
Has it examined the reasons behind the decline in official exports and the gap between production and recorded exports?
Has it submitted a proposal to the Council of Ministers to suspend fees and levies on gum arabic from production areas all the way to the port, thereby making northbound transport more competitive?
Has it approached the Central Bank of Sudan and the Taxation Chamber with proposals for preferential financing and tax incentives for companies purchasing directly from producers and exporting through official channels, including temporary exemptions or incentives linked to export value?
These are merely examples. Many solutions are available if there is political will and a coherent trade policy to pursue them.
As for the argument that production areas are insecure and that military operations are obstructing trade, this is an excuse worse than the problem itself. The war did not prevent traders from transporting gum arabic into South Sudan, nor did it prevent that gum from reaching international markets.
The war did not stop trade. Trade simply changed its route.
There is also the question of origin.
South Sudan has its own domestic production of gum arabic. However, gum produced and harvested in Sudan does not acquire a different country of origin merely because it crosses a border or is re-exported through another port.
This is where rules of origin and traceability become essential. The Ministry of Trade, in coordination with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Customs authorities and Sudanese diplomatic missions abroad, should monitor this trade and ensure that smuggled Sudanese gum arabic does not enter international markets under incorrect declarations of origin.
Yet the greater danger lies not in what Sudan is losing today, but in what it may lose tomorrow.
South Sudan already produces gum arabic, and the environmental conditions in parts of its northern regions are similar to those found along the wider gum arabic belt.
If trade flows, capital and buyer networks shift there, what would prevent investment from following?
Investment could eventually expand into the cultivation of hashab and talh acacia trees, alongside the establishment of cleaning, grading and processing centres.
At that point, South Sudan would no longer merely serve as a transit route for Sudanese gum arabic. It could become a powerful competitor.
We have already witnessed something similar in the sesame sector.
For years, we reassured ourselves with the superior quality and historic reputation of Sudanese sesame. Meanwhile, other countries expanded production, improved quality, strengthened marketing and developed their supply chains.
Sudan’s position declined, while its competitors advanced.
Are we now going to wait until we repeat the same mistake with gum arabic?
Gum arabic remains one of Sudan’s most important historic competitive advantages. But a natural advantage that is not protected by sound economic policy will not endure.
The answer is not to pursue national companies or accuse traders of disloyalty. Rather, the government must make exporting gum arabic through Sudan more profitable than smuggling it out of Sudan.
If gum arabic can leave its production areas, cross South Sudan, reach Mombasa and still remain profitable, while transporting it to Port Sudan becomes less commercially viable, then the question is no longer:
Who is smuggling Sudanese gum arabic?
The question that the Ministry of Trade and the government must answer is:
Who made smuggling it more commercially viable than exporting it?

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