GOIC recommends a union for Gulf Diaries Producers & Manufactures

This union is considered an important step towards setting a unified manufacturing policy for dairies products. This union will be also responsible for buying all production necessities in a unified procedure; marketing the products in a collective manner; and supervising the grant for setting up new factories for dairies products or expanding the designed capacities of the currently working ones. The union is also supposed to direct investments towards certain dairies products which production is less than the others in GCC member states such as cheese, butter and grease and finally to establish a research institute for dairies and milk production to satisfy the requirements of this industry.

From another angle, the report highlights a group of obstacles which Dairies products industry faces which are mainly related to the lack of natural grazing where dairies farms depend utilizing groundwater to plant some areas with green feeds; this requires more investments to set up an advanced irrigation system which suites planting arid regions; also, the nature of the climate circumstances in GCC member states; the high weather temperature and climate change which cause low milk production on the part of certain genealogies. Furthermore, there is the absence of agricultural industries which result with secondary products that can be used as feeds, this causes depending mainly on imported feeds -which constitutes 50% of the total production cost- with their high cost, in addition to the fact that milk and some other dairies products are easily spoiled in case of any delay in refrigeration.

In order to solve the problems which this sector faces, according to the report, a number of points should be observed such as finding new markets; observing quality issues as well as the ways of filling and packing products; increasing the production capacities within certain periods of time; performing researches and studies to develop production; paying attention to training the factories' cadre; specialized companies should handle issues of transferring and distributing products as well as encouraging the export.

On its part, dairies industry constitutes an important sector amongst food processing industries in all GCC member states. Dairies products industry depends on the natural raw milk produced in dairy farms. The beginning of the 70s is considered the starting point of development in dairies products industry in GCC member states; where governments offered support and incentives and encouraged the private sector to invest in this industry.

It is worth mentioning that the number of dairies products' factories in GCC was increased to 153 factories with the designed capacity of 3.2 million tons annually and investments reached some US D 1.8 billion and 21666 workmen. Some dairies factories also produce juices in addition to dairies and most of the factories produce more than one product while a limited number of them are specialized in a single product. Gulf dairies factories are considered modern ones where most of them utilize advanced technologies to process pasteurized milk, yogurt, labana, and ice cream. Also they use automatic products' filling and packing machines.

KSA owns the largest number of dairies working factories in GCC member states, where its share is about 60% of the total working factories in GCC. Its investments share is estimated 83% of the total investments in this industry with the designed capacity share of 72% of the total capacities of dairies products factories in GCC member states. Yet, it can be noticed that those factories don't work with their complete designed capacities in all GCC member states where the actually utilized capacity average is about 60.6%. KSA and Sultanate of Oman own the largest share in the utilization of the designed capacities with an average of 72.3% and 67.4% respectively.