India, Australia and Brazil were the UAE's most important source of meat imports in

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2009, the UAE's Ministry of Foreign Trade (MoFT) has said.

According to MoFT, India is the second largest supplier of meat products to the UAE with a 16.3 per cent share after Brazil followed by Australia and the US with 13.9 per cent and 6.3 per cent share respectively.

World countries have relied on five nations to secure 52.4 per cent of their fresh beef and at the forefront is Holland with a 13.1 per cent share, a study conducted by MoFT said.

The three countries accounted for 87 per cent of the UAE's frozen meat imports, with Brazil's share at 25 per cent, that of Australia at 7 per cent, and India at 55 per cent.

The study underlined the importance of searching for new sources of meat, and getting closer to the global meat export structure, while increasing reliance on Arab and African markets to fill the animal protein gap, as the second best import alternative.