UAE lifts ban on importing Spanish cows

The UAE Minister of Environment and Water Dr. Rashid Ahmed bin Fahad has issued a decision on lifting ban on importing Spanish living cows. The decision came in line with the Ministry’s strategy to realise food security and protect the public health, followed a recommendation put forward by the 29th meeting of the GCC committee on animal wealth which held in Saudi Arabia last March. It sets a number of health and veterinary requirements to allow the Spanish cows into the UAE markets including a government approved certificate stating that the exporting country satisfy World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) conditions. The decision states that imported cows should be born in 2009 and onward. Accordingly, the Spanish veterinary agencies should notify their UAE counterpart of any case of mad cow appeared in a cow raised in its first year with imported animals.