Official: the Arab world imports food at $ 110 billion a year

Dr Khaled Hanafi, Secretary General of the Federation of Arab Chambers, gave a speech at the opening of the Arab-Russian Economic Forum, which was held in “videoconference” on Wednesday, entitled “Russian-Arab cooperation in the field of food security and trade and investment opportunities “, under the joint organization of the Russian Business Council Al-Arabi and the Union of Arab Chambers.

Hanafi stressed that the Arab world imports consumables and food products worth 110 billion dollars a year, explaining that Russia’s share is limited and from this point of view it is necessary to work to increase the size of Russia’s share in this field, in order to achieve common interests.

He explained that the Arab world is interested in strengthening cooperation with the Russian side on the issue of food security, and to that end there were prominent meetings earlier this month between the Federation of Arab Chambers and Arab-Russian Business. Council in the Russian capital, Moscow, according to which many agreements have been signed aimed at increasing the level of Arab-Russian cooperation. In the field of food safety.

He stressed that the forum is held in exceptional circumstances that the world is going through and falls within the framework of continued tireless efforts which have greatly contributed to creating further opportunities in favor of strengthening trade cooperation between Russia and the Arab world, such as the Russian- Arab Business Council and the Federation of Arab Chambers are excited about this meeting Exchanging ideas on mechanisms to address the impact of the Corona outbreak on food safety, as well as identifying new future opportunities for cooperation between Arab and Russian companies to move forward in serving common development goals.

He pointed out that last year he witnessed the organization of the Arab-Russian exhibition in Moscow, and had the participation of over 10 thousand participants from the Arab world and the Russian Federation, and one of the Arab countries is expected to host the exhibition next year. , in the interest of strengthening Arab-Russian cooperation in various fields.