Children taste mangoes during a mango festival in Ismailia province, Egypt.

ISMAILIA, Broadcasting news corporation : An annual mango festival concluded in the northeastern Egyptian governorate of Ismailia on Saturday, as the Egyptian government step up efforts to promote the home-grown summer fruit in local and foreign markets. Dubbed the Ismailia Mango Festival, the first session of the two-day event is organized by the Ismailia Governorate and the Ismailia Chamber of Commerce in cooperation with a large number of mango growers and sellers in Ismailia, Egypt’s largest mango producer. In addition to advocating mango exports and fostering new investment and job opportunities, the festival also aims at promoting tourism in Ismailia province, according to the event’s organizers. The festival introduced popular events in the streets and public parks, in addition to outlets for exhibiting and selling mangoes at wholesale prices.
The governorate’s media office said in a statement on Friday that the festival aims to attract investments to establish facilities for packaging and canning mango fruits and producing juice, jam and other by-products.
Mango harvest season in Ismailia began in late July and will continue until late September. According to the media office, the governorate produces one-third of Egypt’s mango with a cultivated area of more than 35,612 hectares, and exported 1.4 billion U.S. dollars worth of mangoes and other crops over the past three years. NEWS COLLECTED FROM XINHUA NEWS.