LAHORE: Former Chairman of the poultry Association Abdul Basit on Tuesday said that Pakistan’s poultry sector has a huge potential to get major chunk out of three trillion dollar halal food trade provided this sector is patronized and supported the way the government has done for increasing textile exports. He disclosed that poultry exports could exceed textile exports if the industry is prudently facilitated by the government.
While appreciating the government for announcing incentive-laden Textile Policy, Abdul Basit said that poultry industry should be exempted from duty and tax on import of poultry machinery and loans should be released on same lines as announced for textile industry.
He 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. 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, he added.
Abdul Basit said that it is a matter of importance, entire Muslim world utilizes halal products with uncertainty because they cannot say for sure that if they are using the real halal food or not. But Pakistan is the only country from where all the products are considered halal. He said that Pakistani food products do not need any kind of certification as Pakistan produces only halal and nothing else.
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 that makes Pakistani poultry uncompetitive at global market place.
