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Gulf oil producers need to quickly approve a strategy for farming projects to offset food import disruptions due to international supply chain problems, the region’s federation of chambers of commerce and industry said on Tuesday.
The six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, which control over 40 percent of the world’s recoverable oil resources, have invested nearly $3.8 billion in farming technologies but this is not enough to achieve the aspired food security, the Federation’s Chairman Sheikh Faisal Al-Rawas said in a statement sent to Zawya Projects from its Dammam headquarters.
Rawas said the added value of the GCC farming and fishing sector has steadily grown over the past years to peak at $30.5 billion while its contribution to alliance’s GDP stood at around 1.8 percent in 2022.
“There is an urgent need for GCC governments to endorse the much-awaited unified strategy for supporting food security projects amidst growing global challenges that face the food security in the region,” he said.
He said this strategy must include agriculture indicatives and providing incentives for projects that will contribute to boosting farm production in the GCC states of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman.
(Writing by Nadim Kawach; Editing by Anoop Menon)
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