UAE

The government aims to net more investment from Middle East oil state main players next year, in particular in the agricultural sector, despite the global economic downturn, says a government official.

Agriculture Department denies a recent WA trade delegation visit to several Middle Eastern countries was to promote selling WA agricultural land for grain and livestock.

Agriculture Minister Terry Redman says Western Australia should embrace moves by Arab interests in the Middle East to buy prime Wheatbelt farmland to secure their future food supplies. Two groups from the Middle East are due to visit the State early next year as they consider investments of up to $1 billion in cropping, sheep and dairy production in WA.

"They're not talking about $2 or $3 million, they're talking about $20 million to up to $1 billion of investment in big projects," Peter Metcalfe, the director of grain industry development for Western Australia, said in an interview.

Middle Eastern countries flush with oil funds want to invest up to $1bn in Australian farmland as they extend a drive for food security to the world’s second-largest wheat exporter, a grains official said yesterday.

Rich governments and corporations are triggering alarm for the poor as they buy up the rights to millions of hectares of agricultural land in developing countries in an effort to secure their own long-term food supplies.

Gulf nations now are quietly scouring the globe for rich farmland to rent or buy outright.

This analysis looks at how the oil-rich Muslim economies could leverage their existing relationships with agriculture based Muslim economies (which have a wide productivity gap with the worlds net agriculture exporters) taking them to globally competitive levels; reaping for themselves high investment returns, securing their own food sources, and contributing to alleviation of the food crisis from other Muslim countries.

Vision3, an alliance of three major Gulf financial institutions, has signed a landmark deal with Turkey paving the way for nearly $9 billion investment in Turkey’s agricultural sector.

The fund, which will invest in commercial agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa, has dual-purpose - to ensure returns in the range of 15-20 per cent, while the investment helps to create jobs and give rural Africans the chance to help themselves out of poverty. Currently, cru has significant exposure to commercial agriculture in Malawi with over 2,500 hectares of land under its own control and another 4,000 hectares in outgrower schemes.

Some experts believe that the emphasis should be on overseas agricultural investments as well as a boost in trade relationships, due to the unavoidable handicaps to domestic agriculture.

Talks are on with investors from Qatar, UAE and Saudi Arabia. 25,000 Punjab villages will be affected.