‘Saudi Arabia mulls increasing imports of Jordanian sheep’

AMMAN — Jordanian and Saudi officials agreed over the weekend to increase the number of local sheep exports to Saudi Arabia, an official at the Agriculture Ministry said on Sunday.

Minister of Agriculture Khaled Hneifat and ministry officials briefed the visiting delegation from the Saudi ministry of agriculture on the Kingdom’s projects in the animal production sector and discussed boosting Jordan’s exports of live sheep to Saudi Arabia, according to the ministry’s spokesperson, Nimer Haddadin.

“The Saudi officials showed willingness to increase their county’s imports of live sheep from Jordan, especially since their country’s annual needs range between 8 and 10 million head of sheep,” Haddadin told The Jordan Times.

He expected the Jordan’s exports of live sheep to increase this year.

“In 2016, the Kingdom exported some 450,000 head of sheep; over 70 per cent of which were exported to Saudi Arabia,” Haddadin noted.

The country’s exports of live sheep in 2016 dropped by 26.4 per cent compared to 2015, according to the ministry, which attributed the decrease to a lower demand from Gulf Arab countries and Saudi Arabia in particular.

But efforts targeting the Gulf market and Saudi Arabia as main destinations for sheep exports are paying off, according to Haddadin, who said that 1,000 head of live sheep are being exported daily to Gulf countries since the year started.

Official figures indicate that the Kingdom exported 24,500 head of live sheep to the Gulf in January, marking a 35 per cent increase compared to the same period last year.

Results of a livestock census conducted by the Department of Statistics (DoS) in 2016 indicated that the number of sheep and goats in Jordan rose by 13.8 per cent compared to 2015.

The number of sheep increased from 2.846 million to 3.261 million, while the number of goats rose from 939,000 to 1.044 million, according to DoS.