When the Coronavirus Pandemic struck without much warning earlier this year, nations across the world had no idea of how to tackle this invisible but disruptive assault on Global Safety and Security.
Amid the chaos, one thing was quite clear: Safeguarding the safety and security of our people by securing the uninterrupted flow of food and medical supplies. That’s something DP World excels in as a global trade enabler. We did not anticipate Covid-19 but we were prepared to deal with the disruption it caused.
Mohammed Al MuALlem
Since the onset of Covid-19, DP World, UAE Region has been committed to facilitating an uninterrupted flow of medical supplies and essential goods. The UAE’s leadership has provided unstinting support to enhance the country’s food security system, through the Emirates Food Security Council as the primary reference on the implementation of the National Food Security Strategy.
Illustrating Dubai’s role as a major gateway for global trade, the emirate’s external food trade volumes reached nine million tonnes in the first half of this year, representing AED32 billion in total, whereas Dubai’s food imports touched AED22 billion. This demonstrates how robust Dubai’s economy is despite the global Covid-19 pandemic and underpins the effectiveness of its food security strategies.
Jafza, with its deeply rooted food and agriculture sector, plays a central role in supporting the National Food Security Strategy’s primary goal of facilitating global food trade and diversifying import sources.
To ensure trade flow amid a deteriorating market, we work closely with the Dubai Food Security Committee, and have introduced a key digital initiative with a focus on prudent cost management, better productivity, asset utilisation and automation processes.
ZADI is a unified food import platform that aims at facilitating the import and re-export of food shipments throughout Dubai ports, and it’s launched by Dubai Trade, the DP World, UAE Region’s single window platform for cross-border trade.
It’s a collaboration with Dubai Customs and Dubai Municipality to help over 18,000 companies execute 360,000 transactions annually via its streamlined process. ZADI enables both food or customs inspection via a unified platform, reducing their operational costs and time.
More importantly for Jafza, ZADI is designed to protect the food supply chain from monopoly and disruption, enabling traders to easily access food supplies. The presence of DP World in more than 50 countries makes this possible.
Food security has never been more critical for humanity than in the aftermath of the pandemic. Indeed, this was beautifully highlighted recently when the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the UN’s World Food Programme.
It’s a matter of great pride for us that the UAE is partnering the World Food Programme to establish an international air bridge operation that will provide a lifeline of essential health and humanitarian supplies to nations around the world grappling with the impact of Covid-19.
As a UAE Company, Jafza takes its responsibility to society very seriously, and the Covid-19 crisis makes it imperative that we remain committed to supporting food security in the UAE and beyond.
“ZADI is a unified food import platform AIMED at facilitating the import and re-export of food shipments throughout Dubai ports”
MOHAMMED AL MUALLEM,
CEO AND MANAGING DIRECTOR, DP WORLD, UAE REGION AND CEO OF JAFZA