JEDDAH, 20 February 2005 — Prices of sheep in the Kingdom are likely to go down 30 percent when Australia resumes sheep exports to Saudi ports. The two countries soon will sign a memorandum of understanding to facilitate livestock trade.
Muhammad Al-Sheiha, assistant agriculture minister for livestock affairs, said the new memorandum, which allows Australia to export sheep directly to Saudi ports, was in the final stage.
“We have done our part for the resumption of Australian sheep exports to the Kingdom,” Al-Riyadh Arabic daily quoted the Saudi official as saying. “We are now waiting for the Australian Agriculture Ministry to complete its procedures.”
Canberra already submitted draft guidelines for the resumption of livestock trade with the Kingdom.
“This draft document, which is still to be finalized with the Gulf countries including the Kingdom, will ensure a greater degree of transparency and predictability and will help facilitate the livestock trade,” said Australian Ambassador Robert Tyson.
Major Saudi livestock traders say the resumption of Australian sheep imports would help cut sheep prices by 30 percent. They said the importation of Australian sheep through Gulf and Jordanian ports during the Haj season had no major impact on prices.
“The reason was that the quantity of such imports were limited and were used for the sacrificial meat project of the Islamic Development Bank,” one trader said. Australia stopped sheep exports to the Kingdom about two years ago after Riyadh refused to unload the 52,000 Australian sheep sold to a Saudi merchant because an unacceptably large number were infected with scabby mouth disease. The disease can be transferred to humans.
But Australian veterinarians insisted the sheep were healthy. The sheep remained stranded on the ship MV Cormo Express for 70 days as dozens of other governments in the Gulf and beyond refused to take the animals.
Australia exports 195 million Australian dollars ($132.6 million) worth of livestock each year. Before the ban, Australia used to export 750,000 sheep annually to the Kingdom. Makerish Livestock Co. is the leading importer of Australian sheep.
Saleh Al-Makerish, the company’s chairman, said Australian sheep are known for their good quality and reasonable price. “It will have a big impact on local prices,” he said, noting prices had gone up 40 percent during the past four years.
Makerish said sheep prices were still high after the Haj season. Sheep imported from Sudan, Syria and other countries were expensive, he added.
“As a result, importers will not get adequate profit,” he said. Makerish said the lifting of sanctions on African sheep imports also would help bring down prices. “It will have a positive impact on prices of sacrificial sheep to be imported for the next Haj season,” he said.
