A memorandum of understanding to establish an animal protein city in Jazan, Saudi Arabia

Today, Sunday, the CEO of the National Program for the Development of the Livestock and Fisheries Sector, Dr. Ali bin Muhammad Al-Sheikhi, and the CEO of Jazan City for Basic and Transformational Industries, Dr. Fahd bin Dhaif Al-Qurashi, signed a joint memorandum of understanding to establish an animal protein city in the Jazan region, according to a statement.

Through the memorandum, the two sides seek to contribute to supporting the food processing of meat, fish and crustaceans and their modern applications according to regular procedures, and to support joint coordination in applying practices to sustain livestock and fisheries in the region, and to facilitate import operations to cover local demand, in addition to discussing ways of integration, marketing and providing support to investors in the industrial sector. Food for animal protein, exchange of studies, experiences and data, as well as maximizing the benefit from the infrastructure of Jazan City for basic and transformational industries, its port, and the services provided in the value and supply chains of meat and fish sources.

The two sides also confirmed that the selection of Jazan City for Basic and Transformational Industries to be the headquarters of the Animal Protein City came due to the region’s unique comparative advantage by supervising the Red Sea, which connects it to several continents, which facilitates the arrival of Saudi exports to Europe, Africa and East Asia.

It provides the appropriate infrastructure to localize a number of value-added manufacturing industries to the local economy, to meet the local and global demand for high-quality Saudi food products, and to open the way for entrepreneurs to invest in emerging industries such as processing, packaging, leather, fodder, and logistics.

This memorandum comes in line with Vision 2030 aimed at achieving food security, empowering the agricultural and industrial sectors, increasing their contribution to the gross domestic product, promoting non-oil exports and creating job opportunities, by benefiting from livestock and fish resources in the food industry, improving production efficiency and introducing added value to achieve self-sufficiency locally and globally. .

The memorandum also aims to work on building pop-up food clusters, developing logistical services for supply chains, and establishing training centers in the field of food industries to develop human capabilities and support entrepreneurs, to reach the Kingdom’s ambitious goals of localizing 85% of food industries by 2030.

It is noteworthy that Saudi Arabia occupies an advanced global position in the Group of Twenty countries, and an advanced position in the rate of economic growth thanks to the major economic reforms that Vision 2030 worked on, and among the most important sectors that contributed to this growth are the agricultural and industrial sectors. The agricultural sector contributed to an increase in local content by nearly 72 billion riyals, with a growth rate of 7.8% compared to last year.

The Kingdom achieved a self-sufficiency rate ranging between 50-60% of red meat and fish. As for the industrial sector, it succeeded in increasing the number of food factories by 200%, registering 1023 factories until mid-2022 AD, with investments exceeding 88 billion riyals.