Dubai, 21 February 2021:  Dubai Municipality participates in the 26th edition of Gulfood, the largest food and hospitality exhibition in the world, which is being held at the Dubai World Trade Centre from February 21 to 25, under the patronage of Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai, UAE Minister of Finance and Chairman of Dubai Municipality. The Municipality showcases its most prominent preparations and readiness for Expo 2020 and the advanced services it provides in the field of food safety.

Khalid Sharif Al Awadhi, CEO of Health, Safety and Environment Sector said that the Municipality’s participation in the exhibition will mainly focus on foodstuff traders and suppliers in order to introduce them to the prominent services provided by Dubai Municipality, as 85 countries are participating in the event.

He added that Dubai Municipality is keen to apply international standards in the field of food safety and to use the most modern and advanced digital technologies in this field, as an embodiment of its constant endeavour to enhance its vision of building a happy and sustainable city.

Iman Al Bastaki, Director of the Municipality's Food Safety Department, stressed the importance of simplifying the procedures for importing foodstuffs to the emirate, as well as re-export procedures, which will positively affect companies and increase their competitiveness.

Dubai Municipality also sheds light on its 'Qoot' initiative, which aims to improve the food sample inspection service in order to achieve the strategic objectives of Dubai Municipality to 'enhance confidence in food safety' and 'establish a culture of leadership and institutional governance' by ensuring that food items conform to local and international standards. 

Qoot includes four sub-initiatives, such as a Mobile Laboratory that conducts laboratory tests with high accuracy for ready-to-eat foods at events and festivals and reduces the examination period from five to two working days using modern devices and technologies that have been linked to the laboratory system using IOT (Internet of Things) technology to accelerate issuing results and reports. This is in addition to the application of the Food Risk Assessment initiative using Artificial Intelligence technology and Big Data analysis, which enabled Dubai Municipality to take quick and accurate decisions to release 78% of the shipments that arrived at Dubai ports immediately to the local market, which contributed to the food security system during the Covid-19 pandemic period.

Dubai Municipality also presents the 'Zad Platform' project, which was launched in 2020, a unified platform for importing food, the first of its kind in the Middle East, to facilitate import and re-export of food through the ports of the Emirate of Dubai. This comes as a commitment to keep pace with the UAE's strategy to be one of the fastest in the world in economic recovery and to provide smart capabilities after the Covid-19 pandemic, and in implementation of its plan to become a leader in providing all import and re-export services within a unified window, which came as a result of the concerted efforts of the working team, 'City Builders' that includes Dubai Municipality.

In conjunction with Gulfood 2021, Dubai Municipality has organized the Dubai Virtual Food Safety Forum in cooperation with global, regional and local bodies such as the Ministry of Agriculture in the United States, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, and the GCC Standardization Organization. The forum includes a number of lectures and seminars on food safety topics and global and local best practices in light of the Covid-19 pandemic. Various groups of the society, including merchants and employees in the field of food trade and consumers, have been trained to raise awareness on food safety and to provide the latest information and practices for all members of the society.

In addition, the Municipality showcases its services that include import and re-export services, registration of materials and evaluation of food labels to enable suppliers and traders and provide them with the necessary support. The dates for the presence of specialists in the field of food safety were decided by default at the exhibition to answer queries related to the requirements of importing and re-exporting food, registering foodstuffs, evaluating the food label and other services that are of interest to food traders.

The Municipality pavilion at the exhibition will witness the visit of delegations from different countries of the world to discuss the most important issues related to food safety with the concerned parties in the Municipality, in addition to identifying smart practices in the field of food safety in order to simplify procedures for food traders.