Pakistan Poultry Association (PPA) will file an appeal in the High Court against the Competition Commission of Pakistan's (CCP) decision to impose a penalty of Rs 50 million on PPA for working like a cartel and manipulating prices of poultry products. In its order, the CCP had said that collective decisions taken on economic aspects, as practiced by the PPA, were against the concept of competition, negated the idea of a free market and substantiated the existence of a cartel.
Talking to Business Recorder here on Saturday farmer Chairman PPA and convenor export committee Abdul Basit said that the CCP passed the orders on August 16 in a hurry as Competition Ordinance, 2010 was lapsing the same day and it was not likely to be re-promulgated in the near future. Basit said the CCP had not taken into account the fact that prices of perishable poultry products like chicken birds, broilers, eggs, feeds etc could not be manipulated because their stocks could not be stored and had to be disposed off in a limited time.
He said the prices of chicken meat and eggs had fallen now, as they could not be transported to the vast deficit areas during the current exceptionally high floods in the country. "However, these prices are likely to rise again as poultry farming infrastructure has been totally destroyed in Khyber Pakhtoonkhawa, Southern Punjab, rural Sindh and eastern Balochistan," he added. Basit said that according to initial estimates poultry farming sector has suffered a loss of Rs 6 billion in the floods and more than 3,000 big poultry farms have been washed away in the calamity hit areas of the country.
He said instead of taking a unilateral and unrealistic view of the performance of the poultry sector, the CCP should have appreciated that PPA was providing chicken meat to the consumers at cheaper rates than lentils, grams and some vegetables besides livelihood to millions households. He emphasised that the poultry industry has the potential to earn significant foreign exchange, if the government gives it incentives and formulate poultry sector friendly policies.