LAHORE: The Poultry sector has also called for tax free import of poultry machinery and loans on same lines as announced for textile machinery.
In a statement, the former Chairman of the poultry Association Abdul Basit said that poultry sector of Pakistan has a huge potential and poultry could exceed textile exports if the industry is prudently facilitated by the government.
The former Poultry Chief said that the textile industry cannot prosper until and unless it has strong backing of the Agriculture sector which provides all the raw material for this important exporting sector of the country.
He said that Pakistan is the only country in the world that has the largest irrigated Basin and according to some international reports, Indus Basin has the capacity and potential to fulfill food grain needs of the entire world.
Abdul Basit said that there was a dire need of value addition and processing to increase the exports of food items. It is the only industry that could be grown to desired levels. It could be exported to the whole world after due processing and packaging.
Abdul Basit said that the government should immediately announce loans at two per cent mark up for the poultry industry to enable it to produce export surplus. In the poultry export, processing is capital intensive step and because of high rate of interest its prices go up and make Pakistani poultry uncompetitive at global market place.