Can Pakistan grow muscle on meat exports?

In recent news, the Brazilian meat industry received a bad cut. A host of Brazilian meat buyers across the world had slapped an import ban or otherwise suspended their purchases after a two-year investigation of 21 meat-packing plants by Brazilian police revealed how meat-packers paid off inspectors and politicians to overlook practices which include processing rotten meat and shipping exports with traces of salmonella.

This is no small issue for Brazil; it cuts deep into the tissue of the Latin American giant. Meat is its third-largest export, after soy and iron ore. The country sold around $12.6 billion in beef, pork and poultry products in 2016, according to Trade Map data. And the ban or suspension of imports by some of its biggest buyers, including China, Chile, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and the EU, had nearly halved its meat exports in the week after the investigation news emerged.

This led a few commentators to wonder whether Pakistan could fill some of the demand gap created by the Brazilian meat ban. The outright answer is no; not in the immediate future. With at least six decades spent in the development of meat industry, Brazil’s are big shoes to fill.

A third of Brazil’s meat exports comprises of beef (see table: HS code 201 & 202). In 2016, Brazil exported about $4.3 billion of beef to the world. In contrast, Pakistan exported a grand total of $157 million of beef; this was after a ‘huge’ growth of 16 percent in FY15 and 14 percent in FY16.

“Unlike the broiler chicken, which has a life cycle of six weeks in most commercial productions, the age of slaughtered cattle for beef production ranges between 18 and 24 months. This makes it difficult for any country, let alone Pakistan, to quickly respond to the demand gap created by the ban on those Brazilian meat companies," says Zia Banday, a red meat exporter based out of Islamabad, and a director at the think tank PRIME Institute.

Little wonder then China, along with Egypt and Chile had lifted the blanket ban on Brazil meat imports by last weekend; the ban now only applies to those 21 plants under investigation. However, this should not preclude Pakistan from making inroads into the region, if not elsewhere in the world as well.

China, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and the UAE imported about $11 billion of meat in 2016, according to Trade Map data. (Iran’s numbers were dated, and therefore left out of this analysis). Yet Pakistan’s share in this market is a pittance both in the case of beef and mutton, and in the case of poultry.

Although Pakistan sells a decent quantity of beef and mutton to Saudi Arabia and the UAE, it doesn’t sell anything to China, which is a big buyer. Likewise, poultry, which forms the bulk of meat imports in the region, is left untapped by Pakistan.

Industry sources say Pakistan has had an overproduction of poultry since the last five to seven years. Yet, the country has not been able to sell its poultry overseas. One reason behind this failure was the ban on Pakistan’s poultry as the internationally accepted healthy, hygiene, and quarantine standards were either not met, or otherwise not accredited by the relevant government agencies.

In latest developments, the UAE has lifted the ban on Pakistan poultry. This happened in January 2017. However, sources say, to this date Pakistan’s commerce ministry has not yet shared the approved list of companies with the relevant counterparts in the UAE government, since the country’s food ministry is still to finalise that list.

This is not very surprising; the apathy is very much evident from the fact that the government is yet to form the working groups for the development of clusters for various industries, including gems, fans, and halal meat. Formation of these clusters was a part of PML-N’s economic revival plan rolled out in 2013.

Anyway, hopefully now that UAE has lifted its ban, the ball will eventually get rolling. Sources have told BR Research that a Chinese delegation is also expected to arrive soon to explore meat import and investment prospects in the country.

China, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE imported $3.6 billion of poultry (HS code: 207) in 2016, according to Trade Map data. Of that, 78 percent was supplied by Brazil. Just by beefing up poultry trade relations with these countries, Pakistan’s exports could get a much-needed boost. Perhaps that is the reason why certain politically influential families in Punjab are on a buying spree of poultry farms?