‘Saudis need 120,000 heads of goat/sheep per week from Nigeria’

The Central Bank of Nigeria has said that Saudi Arabia may need up to 120,000 heads of frozen goat/sheep per week from Nigeria.

The CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, disclosed this while delivering the keynote lecture titled ‘The Dilemma of Monetary Policy During a Recession: Potential Options for Nigeria’, at the 2017 Annual General Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) holding in Lagos

Emefiele while proffering options available for the pursuit of nonoil exports, said “From preliminary analyses of global trade trends and discussions with potential trade partners, it is now increasingly evident that Nigeria can benefit significantly from tapping into the market for certain goods, which are in high demand.

“For example, the demand for Halal meat and sesame across the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries is huge. In fact, we have credible information that the Saudis may need up to 120,000 heads of frozen goat/ sheep per week from Nigeria.”

Saudi Arabia ranks the first in importing live sheep and goats. 45.02per cent from the world imports for this product goes to Saudi Arabia. It usually imports it from Sudan or Somalia. In 2016, it requested Zambia to supply it with one million goats monthly.

Eid-al-Adha (Feast of Sacrifice) in Saudi Arabia, the third day of The Hajj, which is an annual Islamic pilgrimage to Makkah, and a mandatory religious duty for Muslims, requires pilgrims to buy a sacrifice voucher in Makkah before the greater Hajj begins, which allows an animal to be slaughtered in their name on the 10th. In 2016, about 1.8 million pilgrims performed hajj.