Proposal to ban sale of homemade food products withdrawn

Manama : A group of MPs yesterday withdrew a proposal that bans the sale of homemade foodstuff as well as marketing it online.

According to the five MPs who submitted the proposal, it aims at licensing all home-based businesses and regulating them.

“All home-based businesses that aren’t consistent with the rules and regulations for the practice of production activity from home, organised by the Prime Minister’s Resolution 39 of the year 2010, regarding organising the activity of production from home, commonly known as the productive homes law, shall be prohibited,” the MPs explained in a letter to the Services Committee in the council.

Once announced, the proposal raised public controversy as many Bahrainis run similar businesses online, by selling and delivering home-cooked meals.

It was submitted by MPs Adel Al Asoomy, Mohsen Al Bakri, Abdulhameed Al Najjar, Ghazi Al Rahma and Hamad Al Dossary. The MPs decided to postpone the voting process to another meeting.

As reported last year, Virtual Commercial Records (VCR) services were issued by Industry, Commerce and Tourism Ministry, limiting the legal operation of online businesses only to Bahrainis.

However, the withdrawn proposal didn’t differentiate between citizens and expats.