RECORDER REPORT

KARACHI: President Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum (PBIF) Mian Zahid Hussain has urged the government to take steps to reduce the cost of doing business of Rs 750 billion poultry industry and offer it the facility of zero-rating which can help country earn handsome foreign exchange.

He said the poultry sector was facing issues like taxation, duties on import of inputs, problems in processing and value addition which is currently at five percent only, the influx of cheap poultry products from different countries after FTAs etc.

Now, the government should eye 300 billion dollars Halal sector which was projected to swell by 100 percent in few years, he added.

He said Russia, Middle Eastern, central Asian countries imported around eight billion dollars’ worth of chicken meat while there were over 50 million Muslims in the Europe who preferred Halal products which offered a good opportunity for the government to bail out the country from the deficits, balance of payment and other such problems.

He said Pakistan’s export base was shrinking therefore the government should plan to diversify exports. Increased imports and reduced exports had resulted in record trade deficit which might result in another foreign loan, therefore, serious efforts were needed to boost exports, he added.

Mian Zahid Hussain said exports that were 15 percent of the economy had gone down to seven percent of the economy due to over reliance on textile sector.