Qatari food products are increasingly meeting the needs of the local market

One of the biggest lessons the country learnt from the ongoing illegal siege of Qatar was the urgent need to improve its own food security.

Qatar, which until then had been a largely food importing country, has now started to think about producing food locally. Local companies have stepped up their A-games to fill the void left by companies from the blockading countries.    

Since then, national products have been fiercely competing with other products from around the world to win a major share of the Qatari market, reported The Peninsula.

Since the beginning of the siege on June 5, the demand for national products have increased, leading to companies shoring up their productions.

In the early days of the crisis, the Ministry of Economy and Commerce launched an initiative to support national products in cooperation with major shopping malls by coordinating with them to display the national products clearly and placing a national product logo on local goods and products.

Another popular move aimed at shoring up the country’s milk production was the airlifting of around 4,000 cows, from around the world. The audacious move caught the eye of social media enthusiasts and went viral.

The country is putting up efforts to expand the Arab Qatari company for poultry production and increase its production output by 100%, thus increasing the total number of eggs from 60 million to 120 million per year. These numbers are achievable once expansion of facilities are completed this year.

Qatar is also making efforts to develop Qatari farms, including the prolongation of the agricultural season for 9 months a year, contributing to the plan to achieve 65% self-sufficiency in vegetables within two years.

Qatar has achieved self-sufficiency in the fishery sector, which has now reached 89%. It is pursuing a short-term plan to increase this percentage to 100% in a year. The State has three fish farming projects and their combined production is about 6,000 tonnes per year. There is also a shrimp fish project, with a production of 1,000 tonnes per year, which is enough for the country to export abroad.
For its part, Qatar Development Bank (QDB) has focused on accelerating growth and encouraging national projects within private sector activities in key economic areas that will generate various economic and social benefits for Qatar’s economy. 

The QDB organised a forum titled ‘Buy Local Products’ on July 11, which brought together 70 Qatari companies from five key sectors along with 250 local buyers to encourage small and medium enterprises to expand their local business in sectors such as steel and iron, plastics, wood, aluminium and copper, and general building materials.