LAHORE: The Pakistan Poultry Association (PPA) has written to the Peshawar District Coordination Officer, demanded lifting of a ban on the exports of poultry products, saying that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa govt’s move to facilitate other countries and restrict local export has not only been affecting the poultry industry in the province but the entire country.
According to Pakistan Poultry Association (PPA) (NZ) Chairman Dr Mustafa Kamal, Afghanistan is natural consumer market of Pakistan, which it seems will be captured soon by other countries like India as the Peshawar District Administration has imposed a ban on export of poultry products to Afghanistan. He regretted that the KP govt had been providing transit route to India, Brazil and the US for the shipment of food, eggs and poultry products to Afghanistan but denying the export from its own country. Dr Kamal asked the federal government to take immediate notice of this issue and issue necessary instructions to the provincial govt to lift the ban on poultry products to Afghanistan immediately.
The PPA chief also wrote to the Peshawar DCO, stating that it would be very unfortunate “if we lose this market and handover it to other countries. Export market is not like an on, off switch, once lost is very difficult to regain. Moreover, the major portion of poultry export to Afghanistan consists of Cull Birds, which is normally not consumed in Pakistan.”
He said that the DCO Peshawar’s decision is also a contempt of court, as the Supreme Court of Pakistan, in its verdict had allowed the poultry products export to Afghanistan, rejecting the earlier decision of Peshawar High Court.
The PPA chairman added that out of Rs700b sector, 10 per cent of the parent stock was used in Pakistan while 90 per cent is consumed by Afghanistan. Hence, the ban on export of poultry products will force the farmers to dispose of their stock in market at below the cost, leading to significant loss and ultimately closure of the whole chain of poultry industry, he said. By imposing ban on poultry products export to Afghanistan the chicken rate will be crashed. The authorities can consider it a success but actually it is plan of industry disaster. He claimed that poultry products are available at most economic rate in Pakistan as compared to the world and even cheaper than regional countries including India. In spite of the fact that Pakistan imports soybean from India- the basic raw material of poultry industry, he added.
