Last week, this newspaper reported that a proposal by Pakistan’s celebrated Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC) to restart live sheep and goat exports to Kuwait was shot down by the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC). If that’s not government failure parodying itself, what is?
SIFC was supposedly created as the “one-window” solution to Pakistan’s chronic indecision, designed to cut through red tape and unlock investment. But if SIFC’s proposals are just tossed back into the same ECC vortex that’s been choking decision-making for decades, what exactly is the point? Worse still, ECC’s own verdicts eventually land on the table of the federal cabinet, which itself can do little more than add a stamp to the already-circular file. Layers upon layers of process, committees, task forces, and talking shops—Pakistan’s governance is like an onion: peel away the bureaucracy and you find… nothing.
And what are all these bureaucrats and ministers spending thousands of taxpayer-funded man-hours debating? An industry with a maximum export potential of maybe $100 million a year. In a country drowning in structural crises—historic inflation, collapsing real wages, record-high energy costs, stagnant industrial output, shrinking exports, and an IMF delegation camped out to assess our latest missed reforms—we’re burning precious time arguing over the metaphysical importance of goat exports. Meanwhile, the state is fighting multiple insurgencies, trying to hold a broken political system together, and positioning itself in the middle of an unravelling global order between China and the U.S.. Yet here we are, splitting hairs over livestock. It’s Baghdad, 1258. The Mongols are at the gates, and the ulema are still debating whether the crow is halal or haram.
And what of the actual issue? The whole justification for banning live animal exports has long been spun as a “food security” measure to keep mutton affordable for the common man. But let’s be honest—mutton has never been the common man’s meal. It’s a status protein, a luxury. For most Pakistanis, daily protein comes from lentils, pulses, chicken, eggs, and dairy—not roasted lamb shoulders or karahigosht. Mutton is consumed at Eid, weddings, and the occasional splurge meal by the middle and upper classes. Keeping its price “stable” protects elites and the urban rich, not the working poor.
Ironically, while Pakistan has one of the largest goat and sheep populations in the world, that abundance hasn’t translated into broad, affordable access to mutton for the average household. So if the goal of the 2013 live export ban was to prioritize domestic consumption, what exactly has the state been doing for the last 12 years? Certainly not developing the mutton industry.
Where was the investment in modern fattening farms? Disease monitoring? Breeding programs? Slaughter regulations? Pricing mechanisms that reward efficiency rather than mediocrity? Health inspections? Enforcement of minimum slaughter ages to prevent mass killing of underweight animals? DC rate price controls distort the retail market, while unregulated wet markets sell potentially hazardous meat under zero sanitary oversight.
Compare that with the poultry sector. In just a couple of decades, Pakistan’s poultry industry exploded from backyard coops to a globally competitive, value-added export machine. But not because the state led the way. Quite the opposite—the state simply got out of the way. Poultry thrived because it was left to market forces: private investment, competition, and innovation drove scale and efficiency, not some grand government strategy or intervention.
Meanwhile, mutton remains trapped in an archaic, overregulated, underdeveloped mess. Instead of enabling commercial-scale fattening farms, disease monitoring, and proper slaughter standards, the government clings to DC rate controls, arbitrary bans, and decades of neglect, all while pretending the problem is solved through endless meetings and overlapping committees.
Instead, we have a stagnant, short-termist system where small producers chase quick profits, elite consumers demand artificially low prices, and everyone else gets left with the scraps of an industry that should be one of Pakistan’s crown jewels. Because if Pakistan has any true natural comparative advantage, it’s not textiles, wheat, sugar, or rice. It’s mutton. Few countries possess the climate, terrain, and animal stock to dominate in small ruminant meat production. And with the right reforms, Pakistan could build a globally recognized mutton brand, exporting value-added products and cuisine alongside live animals and carcasses.
And here’s the kicker: banning live animal exports while allowing minimal-value frozen carcass exports makes little economic sense. Both drain domestic supply. Both compete with local demand. And if live exports raised domestic prices, wouldn’t that be exactly the market signal investors need to scale up fattening farms, processing facilities, and branding initiatives? You don’t fix supply constraints by suppressing prices. You fix them by making the market worth investing in.
Meanwhile, Kuwait’s interest in Pakistan’s livestock is telling. Despite the global paranoia over Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD), Kuwait seemed ready to make an exception—either out of desperation or strategic necessity. Yet rather than seize the opportunity to build a world-class disease monitoring and export compliance system, we’re stuck endlessly debating whether to even allow the trade. And from a public health standpoint, live animals carry far higher disease risks than frozen meat, yet the system prefers to fight the wrong battles, in the wrong places, at the wrong times.
This entire saga—SIFC vs. ECC, ECC vs. Cabinet, ban vs. no ban—captures the rot perfectly. It’s not about mutton. It’s about a system so tangled in its own contradictions that it can’t get out of its own way. Every layer of government is supposedly there to facilitate. In reality, each one adds friction, confusion, and delay.
Pakistan’s mutton debate is a perfect case study of why the country is trapped: small stakes, circular arguments, deadlocked institutions, and no strategic vision. An elite class clinging to cheap luxuries. A bureaucracy obsessed with process over outcomes. And a state that looks at natural advantages and somehow finds a way to waste them.
All while the Mongols ride ever closer.
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