UPDATE: Turkey and Iran Exporting Food Items to Qatar. Money agencies report lowering dollar reserves.
Listen to this interview with an OFW in Qatar
Many residents have rushed to supermarkets in Qatar today to stock up on food items after waking up to news of Saudi Arabia closing the country’s only land border. Other neighboring countries Bahrain and UAE have closed their doors as well, closing all sea and airports access to Doha. Egypt, Yemen and Libya have followed suit, virtually leaving only one entry-exit point for Qatar, Iran.
Customers could be seen piling their carts high with supplies of milk, water, rice, flour and eggs at several grocery stores today, which were even busier than is usual for Ramadan.
Photographs of empty chiller shelves have already been circulating on social media sites, as residents reportedly cleared out stores of chicken and other fresh and frozen meat in some shops.
Some stores continue to have plentiful stocks, but that may soon change as news of trucks carrying food for Qatar are now lining up across the border in Saudi Arabia, unable to enter the country amid a diplomatic row between it and Arab nations.
Qatar’s foreign affairs ministry insisted that the border closing would not impact normal life in the country for citizens and residents. It added that the Qatari government will “take all the necessary measures to make certain of that and to thwart attempts to negatively affect Qatari society and economy.”
The grocery rush follows an escalating rift between Qatar and its neighboring Gulf states. Some analysts differ though, "It will immediately cause inflation and that will directly affect normal Qatari people," Ghanem Nuseibeh, a director at advisory firm Cornerstone Global, told the BBC.
Customers could be seen piling their carts high with supplies of milk, water, rice, flour and eggs at several grocery stores today, which were even busier than is usual for Ramadan.
Qatar’s foreign affairs ministry insisted that the border closing would not impact normal life in the country for citizens and residents. It added that the Qatari government will “take all the necessary measures to make certain of that and to thwart attempts to negatively affect Qatari society and economy.”
Trucks bound for Qatar are idle on the roadside. The Saudi-Qatar land border remains closed. |
The grocery rush follows an escalating rift between Qatar and its neighboring Gulf states. Some analysts differ though, "It will immediately cause inflation and that will directly affect normal Qatari people," Ghanem Nuseibeh, a director at advisory firm Cornerstone Global, told the BBC.
Earlier this morning, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain announced that they would close all land, air and sea borders with Qatar within 24 hours. Egypt followed suit. One of the ruling governments in Libya later announced they are cutting ties with Qatar as well. Libya is currently under three separate government fighting a civil war. Maldives is the latest country to follow the same action against Doha.
As a peninsula that neighbors Saudi Arabia, Qatar relies heavily on its only land border to access food, as well as raw materials for its numerous mega infrastructure projects.
Qatar’s agricultural production is constrained by scarce water resources, infertile soil, harsh climatic conditions and poor water management.
Qatar is located in one of the driest and water-stressed regions in the world. Low rainfall, high evaporation rates and a lack of arable land limit its ability to produce food, driving it to depend on imports to meet 90 per cent of its consumption needs.
A survey by Qatari officials suggests that six per cent of land is arable but others estimate this figure could be as low as 1.21 percent. The over-exploitation of limited groundwater also puts significant pressure on existing domestic agriculture. Irrigation accounts for 60 percent of the total national water use.
Less than ten percent of the food consumed in Qatar is produced within the country; the rest is imported.
Qatar experiences the lowest self-sufficiency in cereals, importing 99.5 per cent of the cereal consumed in 2012. Other highly imported foods include dairy products with 74.6 per cent imported in 2012, vegetables (83.4%), fruits (86%), meats (93.6%), legumes (95%), and edible oil (100%).
Abundant gas revenues have supported Qatar’s ability to import food and bridge the shortfall in domestic production. This however does not assure food security in the small gulf nation. This was made evident following the global food price crisis of 2008 where major food producing countries placed bans on food exports; as a result Qatar faced skyrocketing grain prices.
The decision to cut off ties to Qatar comes weeks after Qatar News Agency was apparently hacked. At the time, insulting remarks attributed to the Emir about the country’s Gulf neighbors were published.
Officials debunked these as false, but many GCC countries doubt this to be true.
Update: Two days after the severing of ties, Qatar's government vows that supplies are plenty in the country. Al Jazeera, a news network owned by the Qatari government, aired news videos showing store shelves full with stocks.
People are not doubting this, however, the question remains about the future of supplies as stocks continue to dwindle due to higher than normal demand created by the current situation.
source: Doha News, Meed, Bloomberg
Officials debunked these as false, but many GCC countries doubt this to be true.
Update: Two days after the severing of ties, Qatar's government vows that supplies are plenty in the country. Al Jazeera, a news network owned by the Qatari government, aired news videos showing store shelves full with stocks.
People are not doubting this, however, the question remains about the future of supplies as stocks continue to dwindle due to higher than normal demand created by the current situation.
source: Doha News, Meed, Bloomberg
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