Rice Shipment Arrives to Boost Iraq’s Food Basket
The Ministry of Trade announced today, on Tuesday, the arrival of the ship (CETUS BOWHEAD) loaded with 40,000 tons of imported rice for the food basket.
The General Manager of the General Company for Foodstuff Trading, Lama Hashem Al-Moussawi, stated in a statement that the ship arrived at the guides’ area in Umm Qasr Port, loaded with Thai rice to be prepared as part of the food basket.
Ms. Al-Moussawi explained that a team of laboratory examiners from the company’s Quality Control Department immediately boarded the ship upon its arrival to withdraw rice samples for initial examination, with the samples then sent to the company’s central Quality Control Department laboratory in Baghdad for further analysis to determine suitability for human consumption.
She emphasized that once the laboratory test results are available, the quantities will be unloaded and transported, with a marketing plan to distribute them across the country’s governorates.
Iraq adopted the ration card system following the issuance of UN Security Council Resolution No. 661 in 1990, which imposed an economic blockade due to Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait.
Throughout its history, the ration card system has undergone various stages, including periods of prosperity, diversification of items, and gradual reduction with the end of the oil-for-food and medicine agreement in 1996 and the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003.