DCCI hosts a business meeting between Foodstuff Trading Group and Food & Beverage Manufacturing Group

The meeting was headed by Mr. Mohammed Hassan Al Khateeb, Director of Business Development sector in the DCCI, and was attended by a number of representatives and members of both groups.

The meeting is the second involving business groups in the line of the new initiative which the Chamber has adopted aiming to upgrade the performance of different business sectors in the emirate through holding direct meetings among the members of the representative committees of business groups.

Mr. Al Khateen said that these meetings aim at urging the DCCI's business groups to play a bigger and stronger role in serving the economic sectors they represent.

He pointed out that one of the DCCI's priorities is to enhance the role of the vast base of members and activate their role in discovering new communication links between them and the government authorities concerned to introduce their problems and solve them to help improve their businesses.

Adopting the concept of providing valued added services, the DCCI is currently holding a series of meetings among the business groups which operate under its umbrella aiming to achieve its principal goals, in accordance with the Dubai government's policy till 2010 which works toward developing the quality and environment of business.

Mr. Khaled Farooq, a representative of the Food & Beverage Manufacturing Group, said that the foodstuff manufacturers are facing a number of difficulties which hinder the development of their businesses such as the increase of expenses, the increase of rents and cost of living, the pressure they have to endure imposed by the inappropriate implementation of municipality's rules and regulations, in addition to the sanitary rules regulating the shelf live, storage and validity of products.

He noted that these difficulties and pressures negatively affect on the climate and the development of the foodstuff industry, in addition to the gradual increase in the cost of operations, laborers' visas and health cards, the increase of rents and other manufacturing-related items.

Mr. Vasi S. Khan, Trader and a member of the Foodstuff Trading Group, emphasized his group suffering of the same difficulties of the Food and Beverage Manufacturing Group adding that the rise in the cost of operation and handling of commodities makes it the biggest problem of all, in addition to the continuous increase in the charges of export, import, customs and ports and the complications of the implementation of the municipality's rules on imported and exported foodstuff.

Mr. Khan showed readiness to coordinate with the Food and Beverage Manufacturing Group to regulate the rules and legislations of this sector. He stressed the necessary cooperation with the municipality to overcome these difficulties which hinder the development of the sector.

Mr. Al Khateeb, Director of Business Development Sector in the DCCI, urged the representatives of both groups to form a joint working committee, three persons from each group, to address the authorities concerned and discuss their problems under the supervision of the DCCI.

"The DCCI is quite ready to support the forming of the joint working committee to help resolve their problems with the other government departments in Dubai," said Al Khateeb.

He pointed out that the committee should prepare formal letters mentioning all details about their businesses, supported with statistical figures about their performance in the local market, in addition to full details about the problems and difficulties they face aiming to develop their industry, and the solutions they suggest to overcome these problems and the authorities needed to coordinate with.