UAE envoy attends opening of IOFS office in Astana

ASTANA: Dr Mohammed Ahmed Al Jaber, UAE Ambassador to Kazakhstan, attended the opening of the ofice of the Islamic Organisation for Food Security, IOFS, in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan.

In his inaugural address, Yerzhan Jalmukhanov, the Director-general of IOFS, spoke about the plans and activities of the Astana-based organisation.

He also thanked the UAE for its support and contribution to the activities and programmes of the IOFS.

Dr Al Jaber commended the efforts by the IOFS to achieve food security in the Islamic world.

President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, irst broached the initiative to establish the IOFS in an address to the 38th session of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the OIC in 2011. Two years later, at an intergovernmental expert meeting in Astana, experts from 30 member states from the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, OIC, agreed on a draft statutory document.

The Astana-based organisation aims to solve the problems of providing the population of Islamic countries with more affordable food based on their natural and climatic conditions and geographic location, creating the most proitable transport and logistics routes that will minimise the cost of sending food supplies to OIC member countries and stabilise food prices through the formation and management of joint food funds.