DTS Canada announced the partnership between its livestock export business in Tanzania with Hemmingworth Cartwright ( Africa ) to which both parties will be part of the grouped approved consortiums supporting meat products to the U.A.E in a contract worth US$32 million. The United Arab Emirates and surrounding states are known to import $300 million worth of live animals in 2018, according to the most recent available full-year data on ITC Trade Map based on the United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database (UN Comtrade).
Three categories accounted for 88.5 percent of the country’s import of live animals: sheep and goats, camels, and horses. Camels and horses are not slaughtered for food in UAE. The 7 year contract for Hemmingworth Cartwright ( Africa ) to supply meat products to the UAE is estimated to be worth in excess of US$4.9 million annually, Dr. Chiedza Kambasha is a director of Hemmingworth Cartwright and has been supplying Asian markets i.e. China and Mongolia with ethnic food grain commodities and livestock with a contract that ran between 2014 – 2017 respectively.
Chiedza Kambasha is a multiple award-winning entrepreneur, strategist, designer and senior peace and security consultant working across Africa.
Consumers in the UAE ate 18 times more meat per capita than the global average last year, according to a study by the Ministry of Foreign Trade. That was despite the fact that meat imports fell by more than 10 percent because of the effects of the world financial downturn. The value of the UAE’s meat and meat product imports reached US$973 million (Dh3.57 billion) last year, 10.2 percent down on the year before.
The ministry said the decrease was due to the global economic crisis and the fact that meat imports had risen by more than 47 percent in 2008. Consumers in the UAE spend an average of $420 a month on groceries, most of which goes on meat and poultry, the study showed. High per capita income and a preference for spending a lot on food are credited as the main factors leading to the UAE’s above-average meat consumption rate. Other factors, such as the UAE’s tourism boom, have also contributed to high spending on meat.
The study called for new sources of meat imports to the UAE to protect against future shortages. “We have noticed that the major exporters of beef such as Australasia and South America have experienced problems with a shortage of livestock,” said Saleh Lootah, the managing director of Al Islami Foods in the UAE. To make up for the shortage, the study highlights the importance of increasing imports from Arab and African markets.