Kuwait is our final official engagement on this trip, on arrival you can see this country does not focus on the bling and glamour that is Dubai. This country has a lot of wealth but they don't look to tourism as an industry of importance.
As we arrived at the Kuwait Flour Mills were small trucks and utes lined up and spilling out into the streets, these people were here to pick up their orders of grain for feeding their camels cows and sheep,it was organized chaos .
Kuwait food company is govt owned, they prefer to buy Australian wheat and barley and have done so for 30 years, they take 30,000 ton per month of barley and 20,000 ton per month of wheat.
Salah is the MD , he was a very pleasant man who speaks very highly of the relationship we have. He spoke about during the Iraq invasion how Australian soldiers cleared the silos and buildings here of bombs and mines so they could begin business again. The responsibility this company has is to feed their population, they are currently building silos that will give them storage for 375000 ton, this will feed the people for just over 3 months, hence once again we get an understanding of why food security is such a high priority to the people in the middle east. Salah spoke of 2008 when they were in the position to but grain, they had lots of money but were shocked to find export bans all around the world, on of the only countries that could supply grain were Australia. This again strengthened the relationship which is why they are prepared to pay premium.
After hearing so much complaining about quality decline in our wheat it was nice to listen to a large importer speak so highly of our grain and the way we conduct business.
END
Excellent article! We will be linking to this great article on our website. Keep up the great writing.
ReplyDeleteMiddle East Directory