Allocated Leadership of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia9 billion riyals to address the challenges that could arise as a result of the crises that the world is going through after the repercussions of Corona, in order to achieve food security for the Kingdom and to ensure the achievement of food abundance and not a shortage of its flow, as confirmed by the Deputy Governor of the General Authority for Food Security for Regulatory Affairs, Dr. Muhammad bin Saleh Al-Omari.
Dr. Muhammad bin Saleh Al-Omari said, in the dialogue session at the Al-Kharj Industrial Forum, whose activities began on February 26, and is organized by the Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources, in partnership with the Ministry of Investment, with the participation of 137 Saudi companies and 5 Arab companies in various industrial activities, that the Kingdom’s leadership Saudi Arabia sensed the importance of stabilizing food security after the crises that struck the world and caused inflation and global instability in the field of food, so it allocated 9 billion riyals to address the challenges that could arise as a result of the crises that the world is going through after the repercussions of Corona, in order to achieve food security for the Kingdom, in order to ensure the achievement of food security. Food abundance and lack of flow.
Al-Omari pointed out the creation of a committee to ensure the availability of commodities, monitor food stocks, and control price fluctuations and inflation, explaining that the national program to reduce food loss and waste is one of the national transformation programs. It has four stages.
It began with a baseline study in mid-2019, and the study came out with a percentage of waste, so plans and programs were developed to reduce it. Through awareness and education, campaigns will be launched in cooperation with the private sector to cooperate in controlling food waste, leading to the launch of legislation and regulations to contribute to reducing food loss to achieve the target in 2030 so that the waste rate does not exceed 10%.
For his part, the Director of Food Industries at the Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources, Engineer Musleh Al-Zubaidi, explained in the session that the national strategy for the industry focused on complementary initiatives with sectors specializing in the food industry by allocating 3 billion riyals to support infrastructure, as special clusters for food companies were launched and began in Jeddah Governorate, and work is currently underway to launch the two clusters in Al-Kharj and Jazan.
Al-Zubaidi confirmed that, in cooperation with the Export Development Authority, the launch of a number of initiatives was facilitated to ensure support and stability for the Saudi food industries through the import permits initiative to protect the local product, to achieve self-sufficiency, enable government exports to reach an annual export of 40 billion riyals, and increase exports in the sector. Food industries, in addition to reaching 85% sufficiency.
