BAGHDAD: Iraq will stop importing sunflower oil next year as domestic production is rising under a government plan to boost supplies of food staples. The government will sign a contract to buy sunflower oil from Iraq’s Etihad Food Industries, Qasim Hmoud, acting director-general of the Trade Ministry’s State Co. for Foodstuff Trading, said in an interview. Etihad Food also supplies sugar to the government.
“We have achieved the goal regarding the sugar to be from local production,” Hmoud said. “At the beginning of 2017, the Trade Ministry, as it did for sugar, will adopt the locally produced vegetable oil.” Iraq is encouraging domestic food production to reduce spending on imports denominated in dollars after falling crude oil prices curbed government revenue. The vegetable oil bought by Iraqi authorities will be distributed at a discount to more than 30 million citizens under the government’s food-rationing program.
Etihad’s $100 million vegetable oil plant in Hilla, in Babel province, will start output in February or March, Haidar al-Noumany, Etihad’s commercial director, said in a separate interview. It will have capacity to produce 1 million tons a year of sunflower oil, palm oil, corn oil and soybean oil, he added.
Etihad’s sugar refinery, also in Hilla, was able to meet domestic demand last year and export the excess. In the past 12 months, 10 percent of production has been exported, Noumany said. “Our sugar market share is 100 percent” in Iraq, Noumany said. The plant’s capacity is being expanded from 3,000 tons a day to 5,000 or 6,000 tons a day by 2018 to meet local demand, and for exports, he said.
