China shipping giant suspends Qatar services
beijing — China’s Cosco, one of the world’s largest shipping companies, on Monday announced the suspension of services to and from Qatar over an ongoing diplomatic row after nine Arab nations cut diplomatic ties with Doha.
“In view of an uncertain situation, and to protect the utmost interests of our clients, we decided to suspend shipments from/to Qatar with immediate effect,” the company said in a notice to customers.
Meanwhile, Oman welcomed a decision by Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain to give special consideration to families with Qatari spouses and children on Monday after they cut ties with Qatar last week.
dubai — Qatari citizens all of a sudden are forced to buy foodstuff that they were not familiar with before. They are used to consuming food items supplied by Saudi Arabia and the UAE. However, after Doha was isolated by fellow Arab states, Qataris found themselves in a precarious situation and are forced to buy unfamiliar products supplied by countries such as Turkey.
The import dependent Qatar witnessed an unprecedented chaos inside supermarkets and stores as a lot of Qatari nationals and expatriates rushed to stock up on food items over fears of shortage. Consumers were seen loading their shopping carts with bottles of waters, rice bags, eggs and other goods at many retail stores and even groceries.
Qatar imports around 80 per cent of its food items from neighbouring GCC countries.
A trade source said the food supply situation could worsen further in Qatar if the current crisis is not resolved soon.
Social media was abuzz with posts about food supplies in Qatar stores with photos of supermarkets where some of the shelves are filled with food products of Turkey.
Al Meera hypermarket posted on its Twitter account the pictures of shelves filled with Turkish products.
Photos uploaded on social media sites also showed stores with empty shelves indicating that Qatari residents are either hoarding foodstuff or supermarkets have run out of stock.
The Washington Post warned that the food crisis in Qatar may aggravate. According to an estimate, Qatar has food supplies that could last only for three days in case of an emergency.
Citing Qatari media, the Washington Post said that trucks loaded with foodstuff were stuck at the Saudi-Qatari borders. Yet,
a government statement brushedmade by off the the Qatari fears of shortage. The oil rich Qatar, the paper said, is a small country with most of its land being a desert unsuitable for any type of plantation.
Meanwhile, Egyptian businessman Naguib Sawiris on his Twitter page called on Arab countries to deny access to Turkish products after Ankara openly sided with Doha.
Earlier, Sawiris called on Arab businessmen to disinvest in Qatar, reaffirming the necessity to stop supporting a country that funds terror groups to destabilise the region.
reporters@khaleejtimes.com