Pakistan Poultry Association (PPA) has demanded of the government to provide freight subsidy, duty drawbacks and enabling environment for export of meat and poultry products.
Talking to Business Recorder here on Thursday, convenor PPA export committee and former chairman of the association, Abdul Basit, said that the government has recently allowed export of meat and other poultry products but not provided incentives and the enabling environment to take advantage of this liberal policy.
He said Pakistan is primarily an agriculture country with vast potential of poultry and livestock farming. At present1.5 million farmers have set up 26,000 poultry farms 73 per cent of them in Punjab with an investment of Rs 250 billion. However, he regretted, that none of the successive governments provided any credible incentives or patronised this otherwise very risky and unpredictable enterprise.
He said due to daily 20 hours electricity load-shedding in the rural areas and increase in the poultry feed prices, the poultry cost of production has become unbearable for the farmers. Besides, the poultry sector is paying 15 per cent GST on electricity bills and GST on other inputs, such as locally manufactured products like chicks' boxes, plastic boxes, egg trays etc and other inputs connected with preparation of poultry feeds.
He said the government had allowed exemption of GST and duty drawbacks to some Industries, which suffered in the same manner and are exporting their major products. "The government is also providing subsidy on freight charges on non-conventional export items, like fruits, vegetables, etc to diversify Pakistani's exports", he added.
Basit said as exporters of poultry products and meat, we demand the same concessions from the government that it has already granted to other export oriented industries like textile etc. He said PPA has started export of hatching eggs to the Middle East countries and first consignment of 600 boxes of eggs has already reached its destination. He said a PPA delegation would attend an international conference on poultry farming in Bangkok next month where it would interact with international importers of poultry meat and other products. "As Pakistan Poultry has great export potential it can play a leading role in the international market" he added.
He said the total consumption of chicken meat in the country is three million kilograms, as poultry meat and eggs are the cheapest sources of protein in the country., therefore the government should provide concessions to the poultry farmers to reduce the cost of production. "The prices of chicken meat play a significant role in keeping the prices of mutton, beef, pulses and vegetables at reasonable level for the consumers" he added.
Comments
Comments are closed.