The Ministry of Commerce and Industry said in a statement that the raid took place in cooperation with representatives from the Ministry of Interior represented by the General Department of Criminal Investigation, the Public Fire Force, Kuwait Municipality, the Ministry of Electricity Water and Renewable Energy, and the Public Authority for Food and Nutrition. Teams seized the facility after determining that operators were altering origin markings on the pumps to misrepresent their manufacturing source. The ministry added that all prescribed legal procedures have been taken against the violator with each participating body addressing elements that fall within its mandate.
A comparable operation in April 2020 led the ministry to confiscate 2,000 water pumps from a warehouse in Hawalli where Chinese products were being relabeled as manufactured in Germany or Italy according to a ministry statement issued at the time. That earlier case began with information received by a monitoring team about workers transporting the pumps and resulted in hours of surveillance before the seizure of both the merchandise and adhesive stickers bearing the false origins. The facility was closed and the case referred to competent authorities for further action.
Ministry of Commerce and Industry figures from early 2026 show that inspection teams recorded 2,063 commercial violations during field tours conducted between February 28 and April 30 across all governorates. The infractions encompassed commercial fraud, price manipulation, missing Arabic labeling and failure to display prices according to a Kuwait Times report on the ministry’s oversight activities. In September 2025 the Commercial Control Department alone issued 1,583 violation reports of which 92 concerned commercial fraud including misleading claims about a product’s type origin or composition.
The Kuwait Government Online portal details requirements for labeling country of origin under a dedicated service managed by the ministry. Goods submitted for such labeling must carry no prior indication of origin from their source and must have no record of violations with the Commercial Control Department. Applicants are required to provide a commercial or industrial license, signature authorization, agency registration certificate, customs documents, invoices and samples along with a letter to the ministry.
Procedures for the service involve visiting the Department of Commercial Fraud and Awareness in person to submit the documentation with a fee of 10 Kuwaiti dinars. The ministry maintains that accurate origin labeling forms a core element of consumer protection regulations designed to prevent market deception. Data from the ministry’s annual report for 2025 indicated a 56 percent increase in total transactions handled by the Commercial Control and Consumer Protection Department compared with the previous year reaching 58,863 cases.
Regulatory actions rose correspondingly with official reports up 71 percent and licensing violations climbing 118 percent according to the same ministry compilation. The latest Salmiya warehouse action aligns with this pattern of sustained inspection campaigns targeting warehouses and storage facilities where origin fraud has repeatedly surfaced. The ministry continues to urge the public to report suspected violations through official channels to support these enforcement efforts.
