Dubai: UAE-based Iffco's new food processing and logistics facility in Dubai Industrial City will be ready in 2010 and give the company's exports a major boost, a senior official said.
Iffco is investing more than Dh500 million in the facility that covers 500,000 square metres.
It will include units for refining vegetable oil, meat processing, marine products and a host of bakery and confectionery items.
"The infrastructure work is going on. We will be able to start production in two to two-and-a-half years," managing director Mustafa Sidki told Gulf News.
He said the complex will provide a new base for the group's activities in the UAE.
Iffco currently operates manufacturing plants in Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al Quwain and Al Ain and these will remain operational to supply the local market, while the goods produced and processed at Industrial City will be exported. "We are short of capacity for exports. The UAE food market itself is getting bigger with the increase in population, and per capita food consumption is also growing because of rising income levels," Sidki said.
Overseas expansion
The group is also looking at setting up vegetable oil refining plants in Turkey, Yemen, Sudan and Algeria to tap the demand in these markets.
"We want to have one plant in each of these countries. This will give us better buying power for crude globally," Sidki said.
Outside the UAE, the company has oil refining businesses in Egypt, Pakistan and Tunisia.
The group is expecting its total vegetable oil refining capacity to grow from the current 700,000 tonnes to four million tonnes per year within five years.
