State Trading Organisation (STO) is developing a state of the art cold storage facility in the industrial village in the capital Male’ to complement efforts to ensure food security in the Maldives, the Minister of Economic Development and Trade, Mohamed Saeed has revealed.
Speaking on PSM News' ‘Raajje Miadhu’ programme, Minister Saeed pointed out that President Dr Mohamed Muizzu established the Maldives Industrial Development Free Zone (MIDFZ) as a key driver of the economic diversification agenda of his Administration with the primary objective of ensuring food security in the island nation.
The company has been designed to engage in large-scale importation and re-export activities, with a focus on developing free trade zones to optimise profits and foster international trade.
MIFDZ is a collaborative venture of five other state-owned companies; STO, Maldives Airports Company Limited (MACL), Maldives Ports Limited (MPL), Maldives Transport and Contracting Company (MTCC) and the Housing Development Corporation (HDC).
According to the Minister, STO is currently developing a cold storage facility on 2,000 acres of land in the Industrial Village which he said will complement the government’s efforts to ensure food security.
"STO is already setting up a state of the art cold storage on about 2,000 acres of land in the Industrial Village. Overall, President Dr Muizzu is looking for a comprehensive solution. In addition, there are some other bilateral arrangements that we have established with international markets. For example, the China-Maldives Free Trade Agreement has been active since January,” he explained.
Such bilateral trade agreements, Minister Saeed said, are designed to reduce the price of goods imported to the Maldives, adding that a lot of essential food items with zero tariffs are now coming in from China under the free trade agreement.
The government is also set to introduce a new "Essential Commodity Price Index", marking a further step in its efforts to regulate the cost of staple food items consumed nationwide.
The index, to be developed and overseen by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), will monitor monthly price trends across a curated list of 162 baseline commodities.
Minister Saeed described the index as integral to the administration's strategy for ensuring affordability and availability of essential food supplies.