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DOHA: Hassad Qatar, a company established to achieve current and future food security for the country, has launched new projects at Al Sailiya, Al Refaa and Umm Salal.

In addition to the expansion of Arkiya Farm, the company will also be utilising tripartite treated water in its ambitious goal to achieve self-sufficiency in green fodder for the local market.

“The local market’s requirement for fodder is approximately 60,000 tonnes per year, while only about 6,000 tonnes a year is produced locally,” Jamal Mohamad Al Sada, Executive Director, Corporate Services, at Hassad Food told reporters here yesterday.

Al Sada is confident the company will be able to achieve self-sufficiency in terms of green fodder sometime in 2011 or 2012 and thus cutting down reliance on imports.

He said Hassad Qatar, which is the local arm of the mother company Hassad Food, will be focusing initially on green fodder to meet the country’s market demand, because currently even with imports from neighbouring countries, it is sometimes difficult to meet the demand for fodder.

Hassad Food has launched ambitious plans to produce wheat and other grains in Sudan and Australia. Studies on the economic viability of similar projects in other countries such as in South America, South Africa and Turkey are being considered.

Al Sada also said that Hassad Qatar would eventually expand with projects that would include poultry, milk and its derivatives, flowers, livestock and other agricultural products.

Al Sada was speaking at the soft launch of the new headquarters of Hassad Qatar located on Al Waab Street, opposite Hyatt Plaza, next to Garden Petrol Station yesterday.

Hassad Qatar has successfully expanded its 162-acre Arkiya Farm project by importing and installing two nine-tower, 132-acre central irrigation systems and one 30-acre central irrigation system. In addition the company has constructed a new reservoir to increase its treated water storage capacity from 21,000 to 73,500 cubic metres.

The expanded area will produce 35,000 pales every harvest, a total of around 280,000 pale (5,600 tonnes) per year with its first harvest due in September. Following the new investment and expansion, the total annual Arkiya Farm production will reach 10,400 tonnes of Rodes fodder.

The success of Arkiya Farm has motivated Hassad Qatar to begin similar projects in various regions of Qatar. Therefore the company is executing three new projects at Alsaileya, Alrefaa and Umm Salal commencing in July this year. In total, the three new projects will cover a planted area of 275.5 acres, in addition to 15 acres at Umm Salal.

Announcing the company’s first harvest of Rodes and Barsim crops, in January 2009, the production reached 18,000 pale, while a second harvest in March 2009 produced 36,000 pale.

Meanwhile, the company’s Umm Salal project is cultivating Bioponic fodder as a further fodder option and is currently studying how its livestock adapt to the new foodstuff. The company believes Bioponic fodder will help diversify its animal food sources, reducing imports and reducing costs for livestock owners.

Bioponics is simple and innovative system of food production combining acquaculture and hydroponic-a method of growing plants using mineral nutrient solutions, without soil-growing techniques without expensive equipment.

QFCRA is planning new regulations to govern the insurance sector as early as the second half of 2009 and is devising rules for funds, even as demand dips during the financial crisis, Phillip Thorpe said.

“There’s a good supply of new firms in the pipeline, areas of real growth are insurance, asset management and funds,” Thorpe said in an interview on Sunday.

More than 100 firms are now registered with the QFC, which is vying along with financial zones in Dubai and Bahrain to attract regional and global finance companies as their economies try to diversify away from a reliance on oil and gas revenues.

Oil and gas sectors account for about 66 percent of state revenues and about 60 percent of gross domestic product in Qatar, the world’s biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas.

But the global financial crisis and lower oil prices have reduced the number of applications the QFCRA has received and the number of new licences it is issuing, Thorpe said.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if we see one or two pack up their tents but it is not anything we would regard problematic,” he said, adding the authority would grant a new licence to an investment bank this week.

“We have quite a lot of new proposals on our desk and we will undoubtedly bring out further regulation in the area of insurance in the second half of this year or early next year.”

A government plan to create a single financial regulator for Qatar’s financial and banking sectors, first unveiled in 2007, had been delayed due to the financial crisis, Thorpe added.

The regulator would combine the QFC regulator, the Qatar Central Bank and the Qatar Financial Markets Authority, which regulates the Doha bourse, into one entity.

“Clearly there has been a lot of government energy devoted to ensure the strength of the underlying economy,” Thorpe said.

Qatar said last week it would offer to buy up to QR15bn ($4.12bn) of banks’ real estate investments, more than tripling a support package to help lenders cope with a slump in equity and property markets.

Like its neighbours in the Gulf region, Qatar has taken many measures to help the local banking sector weather global economic turmoil and restore investor confidence.

In addition to the real estate support package, Qatar bought 6.5 billion riyals of banks’ investment portfolios earlier this year and its sovereign wealth fund said late last year it would buy stakes of 10-20 percent in local banks.

There are five daily news papers in Qatar, three of which are Arabic and Two English. The Arabic dailies are AL Watan, AL Sharq, Al Raya, and The Peninsula Published by Al Sharq.

There are few good local magazines such as Marhaba  (Tourist) and Abode (Family).

Broadcast Qatar is best know for its hosting of Aljazeera satellite channel.