DOHA: Food imports totalled more than 933,000 tonnes in Qatar in the first three months of this year, and only a smaller part of the stocks (1,181 tonnes or 0.13 percent) was rejected.
At least 361,400 tonnes of the imports were destroyed due to substandard quality, apex public health agency, the Supreme Council of Health (SCH), said.
The SCH said it has installed world-class equipment and systems at all the ports of arrival of imported food stocks for strict quality checks. “We have five food quality checkup units at the three ports of entry of food imports (land, sea and airport),” the SCH said in a release.
Some 820,400 tonnes of the imported food were re-exported. The SCH said the quality checks on imported foodstuff are conducted as per Law Number 8 of 1990 and GCC technical specifications and regulations.
The Council took 2,774 samples from the imported food stocks, estimated to be more than a 100 items, and sent them for lab tests.
Some 2,560 of these samples were found fit while 214 of them, or 9.6 percent, unfit for several reasons, not necessarily because they were of bad quality.
For instance, many a time the validity of a food item in the place of origin or in other countries where it is exported is for two to three years while in Qatar it is just a year.
A vast majority of the imports (720,000 tons of a total of 933,000 tons) came through the sea via the port, while a little less than 200,000 tons arrived through the land customs check post of Abu Samra.
Barely 14,500 tonnes arrived by air cargo, through the airport customs, and these stocks mostly comprised perishable foodstuff and food items imported directly by star hotels and top-end restaurants.
Milk and other dairy products as well as sweets were mostly the items imported by air cargo that were rejected, while edible oil, sauces of different types and juices that arrived through Abu Samra land post were rejected. Among the rejected items that arrived by sea most was meat.
Most imports through Abu Samra came from the neighboring GCC states, the SCH release said.The Peninsula
