Poultry sector hits an all time low growth in 2019.

Byline: RT Correspondent

KARACHI -- The year 2019 has turned out to be another low-growth year for Pakistan's poultry sector, which is at its all-time low, owing to various tax anomalies and the unfriendly export environment, as even those poultry businesses in Pakistan running state-of-the-art units now find it difficult to carry on. In the year 2019, yet again, Pakistan miserably failed to have its presence felt in a $3.7 trillion international Halal food market.

Due to unjustified taxation policies, during 2018-19, the poultry industry was able to process less than 5 per cent of the total broilers produced in the country, in spite of being the world's 9th largest chicken-producing nation with about 1.2 million broilers produced in the year. Contrarily, the rest of the world's major broiler producers and even those countries with a marginal poultry production process more than 95 per cent of the total broilers produced.

To make things worse, finished poultry products under FTA with Malaysia are allowed to be imported in Pakistan free of import duty and sales tax and from China at a preferential rate of 10 percent customs duty. In contrast, Pakistan government has imposed a heavy customs duty, sales tax and additional regulatory duties on the import of raw materials for producing poultry feed and for...