Ammon News - AMMAN – Jordan imports around 87 per cent of its food requirements, a government official said Monday.

Mohammad Khreisha, director of food monitoring department at the Jordan Food and Drug Administration (JFDA), said the cost of the Kingdom’s food imports in 2012 was around JD2.2 billion, nearly 14 per cent of the value of overall imports, according to the Jordan News Agency, Petra.

Jordan’s import bill was around JD14.6 billion last year, according to the Department of Statistics figures.

At a meeting with owners of food outlets and merchants in the northern governorate of Irbid, Khreisha said Jordanian households spend nearly 41 per cent of their income on food, which requires JFDA and all government monitoring agencies to exert more efforts to ensure that foodstuff are not only fit for human consumption but also of good quality, Petra reported.

The official noted that JFDA deals with at least 350,000 food items, adding the agency’s regulations aim at protecting public health through imposing strict standards on food quality in the domestic market. (The Jordan Times)