A conference held by the US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) in Cairo on Monday revealed that some 50 percent of the animals in Egypt were slaughtered outside authorized slaughterhouses.
Conference speakers also asserted that there was "no proper control" of food products in Egypt, warning that such a state of affairs could potentially threaten public health. Speakers also pointed out that the absence of such controls could adversely affect Egypt's tourism industry.
Egypt imports some US$2 billion worth of foodstuffs every year, according to speakers at the conference.
Minister of Agriculture Amin Abaza, for his part, declared at the conference that food safety represented "a basic human right," pointing to stringent international control mechanisms in this regard.
Abaza went on to note that Egypt planned to form an official Food Safety Authority mandated with implementing the Agriculture Ministry’s food strategy.
Translated from the Arabic Edition.
