LAHORE - The Chinese and Thai companies have shown their keen interest of importing meat and chicken products from Pakistan.

A delegation of Chinese and Thai companies, during a meeting with Friends of Economic and Business Reforms (FEBR) President Kashif Anwar, discussed investment and trade partnership in details with Pakistani companies.

The head of the five-member delegation observed that Pakistan meat and poultry products offer a huge potential for exports, as a large segment of its’ poultry industry is well-organized and has achieved international efficiency levels.

The delegation said that the objective of their visit is to study Pakistan’s market for partnerships and investment and to strengthen the bilateral trade relations with Pakistan. Their prime interest was the food processing sector in which they are interested to develop JVs. They said that another business delegation is to visit Pakistan in the next half of the year to explore potential of Pakistan and look for business partnerships.

Kashif Anwar, who is also former vice president of LCCI, introduced the delegation about the mandatory functioning of FEBR as an investment promotion platform and its role as a facilitator for local and international investors. An extensive presentation was shown on various potential sectors for investment in Pakistan particularly in Punjab which includes food and agriculture, pharma, textiles, tourism, retail, e-commerce, logistics and construction etc. Kashif Anwar said that penetrating deeper into global Halal market can boost dollar earnings form poultry products in a much shorter time than is required for other non-traditional items.

He said that some companies engaged in poultry exports now meet all international standards and a few others primarily involved in red meat exports have the capacity to diversify into poultry exports. The Middle Eastern countries lifted a long-drawn ban on imports of Pakistani poultry back in 2008 but little efforts have been made to boost its exports there as exporters could not meet these countries’ revised criteria for imports. He said that it is time to establish a National Halal Authority that can serve as a single facilitation and certification point for all those who want to tap international markets for Halal products. He said there is a need to recognize the potential of poultry exports and formulate a policy package to realize it, without which initiatives of individual companies cannot produce the desired results.

He said that consistent growth in production of poultry meat over last 5-6 years has brightened the scope of exports but power-breakdowns in the past continued to keep the production costs high. From 600m tons in FY08, output of poultry meat is estimated to have touched 1.5m tons mark in FY14. Similarly, eggs production has increased from 10.7b to 17b now. He said that exports of eggs alone can bring in substantial foreign exchange.