PPA says high import duty will hurt production

Association concerned over low prices of day-old chicks

LAHORE: The Pakistan Poultry Association (PPA) has expressed concern over the low price of day old chicks that has been prevalent over the past two years.

“The current price of day old chick has come down by between Rs2 and Rs4 while the cost of production is well above Rs35 as evaluated by the Commissioner Animal Husbandry for the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa High Court at Peshawar far back in 2012,” it said in a statement.

“Serious loss to the producers of day old broiler chicks - parent stock farmers - has already started by way of premature selling of their breeding flocks for meat purposes; on the other hand, they have cancelled some of their orders for placement of parents stocks, which would lead to a decline in eventual production.



“In the presence of 21% import duty, the curtailment of imports will begin at a much earlier stage than it would have with duty free imports. Seeds for food production like seeds for vegetables or cash crops are subject to three to five per cent import duty at most.

“There are other levies and taxes total amounting to Rs270 per female grandparent chick, the major being landing charges of one per cent and half a per cent Civil Aviation throughput charges.”

The PPA suggested that the entire import duty, including regulatory duty should be withdrawn immediately.

It has strongly recommended that the import duty on parent stock and grandparent stock should be maintained at 3%.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 14^th, 2016.

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