News Details

Ministry of Environment and Water holds meeting traders in preparation for Eid Al Adha celebrations

Monday, 01 September 2014

The UAE Ministry of Environment and Water recently held a meeting with local cattle traders at the Ministry’s headquarters in Dubai. The meeting was presided over by His Excellency Engineer Saif Al Shara’, Assistant Undersecretary of Agricultural Affairs and Animal Sector, Ministry of Environment & Water, and attended by Dr. Hashim Al Nuaimi, Director of the Consumer Protection, Ministry of Economy, and other senior government officials. The meeting was held to discuss preparations for the coming Eid Al Adha holidays, particularly the Ministry’s keenness to meet the demand for livestock in the local market while at the same time maintain price stability.

Under the Ministry of Environment and Water’s scope of responsibilities, the ministry is tasked with issuing decisions, regulations and guidelines covering the importation and export of agricultural, animal and fishery consignments. These implementations complement the ministry’s strategic initiatives towards the prevention of pests and animal diseases as well as infectious diseases.

During the meeting, H.E. Al Shara’ discussed the ministry move to provide secure sources that imports livestock into the UAE—not only to meet the current demands of the local market but to also ensure that price equilibrium is maintained to avoid burdening consumers with an increase in prices.

H.E. Al Shara’, said, “The ministry has released a list of countries that have been allowed to import cattle into the UAE. This list is the result of the Ministry’s careful study of each country’s health status, making sure that it does not include any diseases which may spread epidemiological impact on public health and among the local cattle. The list of the 50 allowed countries include Azerbaijan, Georgia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Moldova, and Ukraine, as well as Ethiopia and Lebanon, which is allowed to import cows, goats and sheep as well. These efforts are being done by the ministry to help overcome importation obstacles and promote the import of livestock into the local market.”

The Ministry of Environment and Water has provided human and material resources as part of the move to increase productivity and improve efficiencies for work in the local quarries while also providing prompt services to the customer through qualified veterinarians and agronomists and the use of technical support systems such as Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS), a software-based system offering features that supports a modern laboratory's operations.

In addition, the ministry has also set flexible delivery services to meet the expected demand increase in animal livestock during the Eid Al Adha season. The ministry will be implementing a system change in labor management laboratories from the beginning of September until mid-October—where sampling services will be available in the morning and evening, everyday of the week from Saturdays to Fridays.

For their part, the cattle traders praised the efforts made by the Ministry of Environment and Water, particularly its move to open new safe import sources to help meet the local market needs and the move to ensure that livestock being imported into the UAE are free from any diseases. They also affirmed their support to the ministry and expressed their willingness to provide the local market with sufficient livestock requirement during Eid al-Adha, where around 120,000 cattle, sheep and goats will be imported into the UAE.