By APOLINARI TAIRO

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A Saudi Arabian delegation led by the kingdom’s Food and Drug Authority inspector, Ahmed Alhajouj, was in Tanzania this past week to inspect abattoirs and hold talks with the Tanzania Bureau of Standards as the kingdom seeks new beef producers.

This followed a meeting between President Samia Suluhu and Saudia Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan two months ago in Dar es Salaam, where livestock products were top on the agenda of their talks.

Of the new investments in this sector is the Egyptian-owned $10 million Tan Choice meat processing factory in the EPZ near Dar in coast region, with a capacity to slaughter 1,000 head of cattle and 4,500 goats and sheep per day, and produce 100 tonnes of beef daily for the export market of United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, China, Indonesia, Vietnam and Malaysia.

Others are the Al-Kaffir of Oman and the Tanzania Meat Company both in Dodoma. The latter has a capacity to slaughter 400 head of cattle and 6,000 goats and sheep daily.

The Mwanza-based Chobo Investment Factory opened last year, has a capacity of slaughtering 600 cattle and 920 goats per day.

Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Livestock Prof Elisante ole Gabriel said the country targeting to grow the gross domestic product input from the livestock business from the current 7.4 percent to 15 percent GDP by 2025.

Tanzania produces 581,804 tonnes of meat and meat products annually, with 96 percent consumed locally according to the Tanzania Meat Board. said.

Data from the ministry of Livestock places Tanzania’s livestock population third largest on the continent with over 30 million heads of cattle, 98 per cent of which are indigenous breeds; 16.7 million goats and eight million sheep.