PPA renews call for waiving duty on maize

LAHORE
Pakistan Poultry Association (PPA) has reiterated its demand for the removal of regulatory duty on maize imports and the exemption of the poultry industry in the reformed general sales tax regime.
PPA North Zone Chairman Abdul Haye Mehta claimed that the poultry industry was a well knit and organised sector and such measures would almost certainly prove to be counterproductive and ramp up the price of white meat.
He, along with other poultry industry experts, was addressing members of Agriculture Journalists Association, here on Wednesday. PPA Chairman said the poultry industry was governed by the principles free market and the whole supply chain was quite stable.
There should be no interference from the government which would distort the pricing mechanism in the market. FORMer PPA chairman Abdul Basit said that poultry industry needed some 2.18 million tonnes of maize for poultry feed out of a total yield of 3.6 million tonnes.
The quantity produced is simply insufficient for domestic needs. “If the government removes regulatory duty on maize imports it would ensure sufficient quantity on the domestic market,” he reasoned. Local farmers would be unaffected as the maize prices in international and domestic markets were equivalent.
Responding to allegations of cartelisation, poultry industry experts complained that Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP) was singularly uncompromising. The recent increase in the price of chicken meat was only possible due to the ‘invisible hand of the market’. They dispelled the impression that poultry prices were manipulated.
PPA leaders divulged that total losses incurred in the devastating floods exceeded Rs eight billion this year. 6,000 poultry farms had simply washed away. However, they believed that the price of poultry meat would be stable, as new stocks had balanced the losses endured, to some extent. They also called upon the government to facilitate soft loans to the poultry industry.
PPA scientist Dr M Mustafa Kamal challenged the common perception that broiler chickens were given artificial hormones, harmful for human consumption, for faster growth. Poultry feed was freely available on the market and open to testing by anyone, he added.