August 26, 2010
Pakistani traders press for immediate meat export halt
Pakistani meat merchants have demanded immediate cancellation of livestock and meat export licences, while urging the government to stop cattle smuggling to Afghanistan and Iran in a bid to save the country from an impending meat and leather crisis.
The demand was made by the office-bearers of the Meat Merchants Welfare Association, Salim Qureshi, Advocate Tahir Pervez, Sikander Iqbal and Anees Qureshi on Tuesday (Aug 24).
They called upon the government to import some three million small and big cattle immediately to ward off the crisis.
They also suggested to the government to chalk out a public-private partnership cattle farming plan to meet the country's growing needs and help the people in setting up cattle farms by providing soft loans and land to meet the post-flood situation.
Pervez warned that if the government ignored their demands, there would be an extreme scarcity of meat and cattle in the country and it would become impossible to control its price.
The government had issued licences to export meat in 1999 on the condition that the exporters would set up their own cattle farms, and could export 40% of quality meat from the available cattle in their farm while the remaining 60% would be provided in the local market.
However, none of the meat exporters met this condition and the government continued to issue export permits on political grounds, resulting in an acute shortage of cattle and hike in meat prices. As a result, the government imposed a ban on the export of livestock in 2007, but it was lifted in 2009.
Pervez said more than 100,000 cattle were being exported and smuggled out from Karachi on a monthly basis. Furthermore, the floods had devastated the country's livestock sector and according to an estimate over 10 million cattle had perished in the country, including five million in Sindh alone.
Cattle that survived from the devastated floods were dying on a daily basis due to starvation and an outbreak of diseases, he added.
