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UAE eyes farmland in Africa, Asia

The UAE plans to invest in agricultural land in African and Asian countries to tackle basic foodstuffs shortages at home, an undersecretary at the Ministry of Economy has announced.

The UAE, has started buying farmland in countries such as Sudan, Egypt, India and Pakistan, Mohammed Ahmed Al-Shehhi told the daily Al-Bayan on Wednesday.
The UAE currently invests in 900,000 feddans in several Sudanese provinces, where it has Zayed Al-Khayr project, a 40,000-feddan land where wheat and corn are grown, he said. One feddan is 4,200 square metres.

The country is also seeking to invest in Kazakhstan, Vietnam, Cambodia and South America, according to earlier media reports.

A desert country, the UAE relies heavily on food imports, particularly grains.

Soaring global food prices have been a key driver of the country's inflation, which hit 11.1 percent in 2007. The UAE pegs its dirham to the ailing dollar, which raises the cost of non-dollar imports. (Reuters)

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