JEDDAH, 19 November 2007 — A recent decision by several Gulf countries to ban the import of poultry products from Saudi Arabia may cause huge losses to Saudi farmers and exporters, said Riza Al-Naghmoush, a poultry farmer in the Eastern Province.
Kuwait and United Arab Emirates said they have imposed the ban following bird flu reports in the Kingdom. According to a source at the Bahrain Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Manama is expected to follow suit.
“The ban on the import of Saudi poultry products in the Gulf would mean huge losses to Saudi farmers and exporters, particularly if the ban remains in place for a longer period,” said Al-Naghmoush.
Saudi Arabia annually exports 10,000 tons of poultry products to the UAE and Yemen.
Meanwhile, Sultan Al-Fohaid, director of customs at the Al-Khafji border, said on Saturday that his office had not registered any trucks carrying Saudi poultry being refused entry into Kuwait.
“We have not received any official notification about the ban from Kuwaiti officials and will assume that the ban has been implemented when trucks are turned away from the border,” he said.
Topping the list of poultry producers in the Gulf and Arab region, farmers in the Kingdom last year sold 525,000 tons of broiler chickens worth SR42 billion to both domestic and foreign markets, and produced 3.13 billion eggs (worth SR1.45 billion) in the same period.
More than 480,000 tons of poultry products, accounting for 75 percent of the country’s total requirements, are locally manufactured. The remaining 320,000 tons are imported from Brazil, France, America and China.
The King Khaled Hospital in Al-Kharj, meanwhile, is treating a man showing symptoms of the illness.
