Qatar Plans Food Cluster to Boost Supplies at Home - Bloomberg

Qatar Plans Food Cluster to Boost Supplies at Home - Bloomberg:

"Qatar will spend 1.6 billion riyals ($431 million) to build a food-processing and storage facility near Hamad Port in about two years that will more than meet local demand for sugar, rice and cooking oil. Doha-based Al Jaber Engineering won the contract and has 26 months to design and build the project for the nation’s food security, Jassim bin Saif al-Sulaiti, minister of transport and communications, told reporters Sunday in Doha. Qatar invited companies to bid on the project last year, before the Saudi-led trade boycott against Qatar that began in June. Food security is important in the Middle East because lack of rain and excessive heat make it difficult to grow grains and develop livestock farms. Qatar is in a tougher position because it depended on food coming across the border with Saudi Arabia, which cut diplomatic and trade links with its neighbor last month. Some 38 percent of Qatar’s food used to come through Saudi Arabia, according to Mazen Al-Sudairi, head of research at Al Rajhi Capital."



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