ISLAMABAD: The government has set a target to produce about 4.708 million tons of meat during the fiscal year 2019-20 as against the production of 4.478 million tons of the corresponding period of last year.

The meat production in country had witnessed about 1.3% growth during the last fiscal year (2018-19) as the meat production targets were set at 4.420 million tons during the outgoing fiscal year, said an official in the Ministry of National Food Security and Research.

Talking to APP here on Wednesday, he said that during the period under review, beef production targets were fixed at 2.303 million tons and mutton production at 748,000 tons to tackle with the domestic consumption as well as to export.

During last fiscal year, he said that production of mutton had witnessed about 0.5% growth where as mutton production was reduced by 1.1%, adding that beef production was recorded at 2.227 million tons and mutton 732,000 tons during 2018-19, he added.

Meanwhile, poultry production targets which was main source of meat provision for a large scale of local population was fixed at 1.657 million tons during the current financial year, he added.

He said that during the last financial year (2018-19), poultry production in the country grew by 3.6% as about 1.518 million tons of the above mentioned commodity was produced to meet with the local consumption as well as to export, he added.

Besides, he informed that government has set a target to produce 61.690 million tons of milk during current fiscal year and 20.133 million eggs to fulfill the domestic consumption.

Both milk and eggs production during last year had registered about 1.3% and 0.3% growth in their respective production, he added.

The government was also focusing to exploit the potential of aqua culture in coastal areas and rivers across the country, particularly in Balochistan, Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and had set a target to produce about 920,000 tons of fish during the period under review. About 336,000 tons inland fisheries and 584,000 tons of marine fish production targets were fixed for current fiscal year.