Qatar is investing in red meat production in southern Iran, says president of Bushehr Chamber of Commerce.
“Qatar’s Wadim Food company is seeking to export sheep, raised in Australia, to Bushehr Province”, said Khorshid Gazderazi in a phone interview with Iran Chamber Newsroomn. “The livestock will be quarantined in Bushehr, killed in several provincial slaughterhouses and later packaged for Iran domestic consumption as well as export”, he added.
Widam Food is exclusively handling the Qatari government subsidization of Australian meat to Qatari market, and it also supports the market by importing other type of meat on non-exclusive basis, according to the company’s website.
Bushehr, located on the Persian Gulf shores, is a favourable place to raise and keep livestock given its grazing land and mild weather in several months of the year.
Iran and Qatar have been boosting bilateral relations after Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt imposed sanctions on Doha. The economic blockade made Qatar look at Iran and Turkey to offset the punitive measures.
Bushehr has been the main port through which Iran has been exporting minerals, cement and other raw materials as well as food products to the small Persian Gulf country. Several slaughterhouses are active in the region and “given their proximity to the port, Qataris thought of investing here,” explains the president of Bushehr Chamber of Commerce.
Qatari investors have already been in talks with their Australian counterparts to facilitate the livestock transport to Iran, according to the head of the southern Iran Chamber of Commerce. He says the Qataris have been weighing the ground in Bushehr Province to meet the international standards of livestock quarantine and slaughter.
The first part of the investment plan sees the transport and slaughter of 30,000 Australian sheep to meet Iran’s growing domestic market. “The project is supposed to be finalised in the next six months,” reiterated Gazderazi.
Iran and Qatar are also seeking to launch the first direct commercial and passenger shipping line through the southern Port of Bushehr. “I think it will finally come through in a matter of two months”, he said, expressing hope it “turns Bushehr into a [transit] hub [in the Persian Gulf] between the two countries”.