Managing director of Abu Dhabi's Food Security Center, Khalifa al-Ali, recently told Reuters that the new silos will begin operating in the coming months, managed by a private company.
Often overlooked by its slightly more extravagant neighbouring emirates, the new grain silos in Fujairah soon could act as a boost for the Middle East.
As FoodNavigator reported last month, food security could be threatened by political actions in the region, and Iran’s recent threats to close the Strait of Hormuz could have a strong effect on food imports into the region.
The decision to build the new silos in Fujairah appears to have taken into consideration, thanks to the convenient location of the port of Fujairah, which lies outside the Straits. In fact, the emirate is emerging as an increasingly valuable global hub in various industries, with its direct access to the Indian Ocean and some of the world’s most important shipping routes.
The planned silos will have the capacity to store up to 275,000 tonnes of grain, enough for a strategic supply of around six months – vital for food security in the region should the political threats ever materialise.
Al-Ali told Reuters: “We are now in the final stages of the project and will announce a private partner to operate the silos very soon. It will serve the whole region's business, and in times of need of course, it will be used for the region as a whole.”
The project will bring the UAE’s total grain storage capacity to around 850,000 tonnes. While the move is a step forward for the emirates as a whole, other regions in the Middle East are aiming even higher. As the world’s biggest wheat importer, the agriculture minister for Egypt, Abou Hadid, announced last month that the country is aiming for self-sufficiency in wheat by 2019. This is dependent on silo storage capacity in the country being raised by one million tonnes annually.
With silo storage capacity in Egypt currently standing at 1.5m tonnes, the UAE has played a pivotal role in the drive toward the country becoming self-sufficient. The UAE pledged part of its $4.9bn aid package to Egypt toward building 25 new wheat silos, each holding 60,000 tonnes, which would bring Egypt’s total storage capacity to 3m tonnes by mid-2014.