Pakistan initiates meat export to Iran

KARACHI – Pakistan, for the first time, has started export of frozen meat, carrying an international market of $400 million to $500 million, to Iran. Products of the country have successfully created a market in the neighbouring country, sources told Pakistan Today on Tuesday. A Lahore based company, they said, has recently started exporting frozen meat to Tehran.
This was another progress of the Halal food sector of the country after it entered few markets of gulf countries, they claimed. The Pakistani companies were exporting meat to Middle East, including Dubai, Kuwait, Oman and Muscat while the country’s exporters have also created room for their products in some of the leading international retailers in the GCC.
Iran, which has high demand of meat, was a productive market for Pakistani products. Tehran’s Meat and Dairy Development Institution under the Ministry of Agriculture, has recently agreed to buy 10,000 tonnes of cattle, sheep and goat meat from Ethiopia for the first time to meet its domestic demand, sources said. When Ethiopia commences export for the two countries, it will be one of the largest meat exporter countries, previously dominated by Pakistan, Australia and Latin American countries.
According to sources, Iran was going to buy $40 million worth of meat from Ethiopia as price of Ethiopian meat was about $4.0 per kilogram, which is a lower price than other exporter countries. In order to keep up with orders from the neighbouring country, they said, Pakistani exporters needed to consider price of the frozen meats besides improving quality of the products.
According to sources, over $60 million worth of frozen meat was being exported to Gulf countries after processing from eight slaughterhouses. Five of these are in Lahore and three in Karachi. The country had exported about 23,855 tonnes of meat worth $74.4 million during 2008-09. It had also exported around 94,000 animals to Afghanistan, amounting to $12.35 million. In 2008-09, meat production stood at 2.242 million tonnes.
Though India was the leading meat exporter of the region, but it was not exporting beef, leaving a large potential market to Pakistan that should be exploited by country’s exporters. Pakistan Meat Processor Exporter Association has estimated that annual beef production of the country was 1.549 million tonnes, mutton 0.587 million tonnes and poultry production was 0.106 million tonnes. Beef contributes almost 50 percent of total meat exports of the country, while mutton’s share was around 23 percent and poultry was 17 percent.
Exports account for only 1.8 percent of the total production. According to a report, Pakistan’s export to Iran during July to May of the financial year 2009-2010 was recorded at $225 million against export of $360 million during the corresponding period of fiscal year 2008-2009, a decline of 37.5 percent. The trade balance was, however, highly in favour of Iran as Islamabad had imported goods worth $896.5 million during the 11 months of last financial year.
The high trade deficit was due to the import of crude oil from the neighbouring country.