KUWAIT: All meat imports reaching the domestic market are subjected to thorough and very careful examination to ensure the products are safe for consumption, a municipal official affirmed yesterday. The department of imported food is very keen on examining the imports, said Khalaf Al-Mutairi, in charge of the services sector at Kuwait Municipality. Samples are forwarded to the Ministry of Health to ensure that the imported stocks are fit for human consumption, he affirmed in a statement to Kuwait News Agency (KUNA).

Such procedures are applied on the imported stocks regardless of the country of origin. Some Asian nations have recently halted meat imports from Brazil, where the police reportedly searched premises of 30 meat companies amid claims about exports of spoilt stocks. Brazil exports beef and poultry products to more than 150 countries. Main importers from the Latin American nation are Saudi Arabia, China, Singapore, Japan, Russia, Holland and Italy.

The Brazilian embassy in Kuwait released a statement to the press yesterday, quoting statements the Brazilian President Michel Temer regarding the investigation being held in Brazil on export meat producers. "I have convened a ministerial meeting over the weekend, in order  to assess the safety of national and international consumers with regard to the quality of the meat produced in the country," the statement reads. "The government has decided to speed up the audit process in the 21 establishments cited in the Federal Police investigation. Three of these establishments have already been suspended and all 21 will be placed under special inspection regime conducted by a specific task force of the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food Supply (MAPA). The facts are that among 11,000 employees, only 33 are being investigated. Out of  4,837 establishments subject to federal inspection, only 21 are allegedly involved in irregularities. The objective of  the  investigation is not  the agriculture  and livestock defense  system  in place, whose rigor is widely recognized, but a few conduct deviations. Foreign embassies were assured that all exporting plants remain open to inspections by importing countries and to the monitoring of activities under the national control system, one of the most respected in the world. MAPA will  fully  cooperate  with  the  current  investigations  in  order  to  determine  eventual misconduct within the agriculture and livestock defense system. The Federal Government manifests its confidence in the quality of the national product, which has been approved by consumers in highly demanding markets around the world in terms of inspection and defense systems. MAPA has a strict inspection service for products of animal origin. The  high  standard  of  excellence opened the  doors of  Brazilian meat  to  over  150 countries, with permanent auditing, monitoring and risk assessment. In addition to the national controls, products are also subject to local inspection on reaching their destinations. In 2016 alone, 853,000 items of products of animal origin from Brazil were sent to foreign markets and only 184 were considered, by importers, out of compliance, often because of non­sanitary issues, such as labeling and completion of certificates."