Testing of food items in Kuwait ‘takes’ 20 days – Oman and UAE takes 3 days

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KUWAIT CITY, Jan 17: A number of companies that import and produce food items are requesting for the export of their products and for redirecting the imported food items that arrive in Kuwait to the markets of neighboring countries due to the delay in testing samples which result in the companies bearing huge losses, reports Al-Qabas daily.

According to the Kuwait Union of Traders and Food Manufacturers, the process of testing food items in countries like Oman and the United Arab Emirates take only three hours but it takes about 20 days in Kuwait.

The union received several complaints from companies that imported about 200 containers of food items which were detained in their warehouses for more than 20 days due to shortage of space in the border storages where such cargoes remain for about one week before they are sent for testing to the laboratories of Public Authority for Food and Nutrition.

This leads to large quantities of food items becoming spoiled because of the unsuitable conditions of the storages at the borders.

In addition, improper method of storing the samples also end up in spoiled samples, which do not represent the entire cargo which are stored well in the warehouses of the companies. Eventually, the laboratory reports state that the imported food items are not safe for human consumption, based on the improperly- stored samples which have nothing to do with the rest of the cargo that are stored under proper conditions. This results in huge losses for the traders. Therefore, the traders called on Ministry of Commerce and Industry to intervene in this matter for ensuring the release of their commodities and for allowing them to sell them in any of the neighboring countries.

This news has been read 7563 times!