Meat export surges 15 percent

ISLAMABAD – Pakistan has exported 153,543 animals in the current fiscal year, thus increasing meat export by 15 percent, Minister for Religious Affairs Syed Khursheed Ahmad Shah said on Friday.
Replying to a question raised by PML-N’s Shireen Arshad Khan in the National Assembly, he said that exported animals included 48,680 cattle, 50,000 buffalos, 54,716 goats and 147 camels.
In order to facilitate and encourage livestock export, the government decided that no permit was required from the Ministry of Livestock and Dairy Development for commercial export of live animals for meat purposes, he said.
“This ministry in consultation with Ministry of Commerce determined 2,53,000 quantity of exportable live animals for meat purpose through Open Policy Quota under existing export policy,” he added.
To a supplementary question, he said that Pakistan, currently, had around 110,055 million animals in the country and meat production had increased by 15 percent. “At present, we are self-reliant in meat,” he said.
In order to improve and increase supply situation of meat and meat animals in the country, the government initiated a PSDP funded project “Livestock and Development for Meat Production”, bearing a total cost of Rs 1,520 million.
This project has established 131,77 feedlot fattening farms (7,740 beef and 5,431 mutton farms), having 1,63,977 beef and 2,17,701 mutton animals and trained 728 farms on feedlot fattening operations.
He maintained that rising meat price was due to inflationary trend in the country. There is an overall increasing trend in the consumer’s price index over a period of time.
Its impact has been reflected in overall increase in the price of essential commodities and meat is not an exception, he added.
He stated that the Federal Government had introduced a penalty for tempering vessel-based Vessel Monitoring System. In the revised Deep Sea Fishing Policy of 2009, the government also introduced mesh size of 90 mm (stretched) or more with no additional bags, for the purpose of reducing the size mesh in the code end of the trawl net to avoid illegal fishing, he said.
He stated that the government of Sindh, during July last year, had completely banned the use of code net with a mesh size of less than 1.5 cm of the trawl nets operating in the provincial territorial waters.
Seafood export up by 31 percent: Exports of fish and fish preparations surged by 31.01 percent during the first seven months of the current fiscal year compared to the same period of last year.
The fish and fish preparations from the country were recorded at $151.812 million during July-January (2010-11) compared to exports of $115.879 million during the corresponding period of last year, Federal Bureau of Statistics reported.
Seafood exports, during January 2011, increased by 9.13 percent in comparison to exports of the same month last year.
Fish exports, during January 2011, stood at $19.923 million against exports of $18.257 million in January 2010. Compared to exports of $23.079 million in December 2010, sea exports, during January 2011, underwent negative growth of 13.67 percent, FBS reported. It is pertinent to mention that Pakistan had faced problems in exports to European Union since 2007 as it had de-listed all Pakistani seafood exporters after an EU mission visited the harbour and figured deficiencies both at the harbour and at processing units.
Experts believe that Pakistani seafood could earn up to $2.0 billion, if fishermen adopted modern fishing methods. On the other hand, exports of meat and meat preparation increased by 52.65 percent during July-January 2010-11, FBS reported.
Exports of meat and meat preparations were recorded at $82.304 million against exports of $53.916 million in 2009-10. Export of meat commodities, during January 2011, boosted by 45.95 percent as compared to exports of last January.
However, it decreased by 7.24 percent compared to exports in December 2010. Meat exports in January 2011 stood at $12.057 million against the exports of $8.261 million in January 2010 and $12.998 in December 2010.