Poultry Prices Hit New Peak

PAKISTAN - There is no relief for consumers regarding poultry product prices, and farmers and wholesalers have pushed up rates to 126 rupees (PKR) per kilo for live bird and PKR220-230 per kilo for meat.
calendar icon 24 September 2008
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In the first week of September, poultry live bird and meat prices exceeded PKR116 and PKR200 per kilo, respectively.

The price had fallen in the second week of this month to PKR112 per kilo but from 17 September, it again climbed to PKR118.

On 19 September, the Pakistan Poultry Association (PPA) pushed up prices of live birds to PKR122 per kilo while the Karachi Wholesalers Poultry Association fixed the rate at PKR130 per kilo, up by PKR4 per kilo from the PPA rate. KWPA’s retail meat rate is PKR220 per kilo.

When asked why poultry people are enjoying a free-hand, a city government official said poultry does not fall in the list of 22 items of essential commodities finalised under the Sindh Essential Items Profiteering and Hoarding Act.

DAWN reports that for many years, no serious effort has been made to include poultry in the essential items’ list.

The PPA and KWPA always push up prices during Ramazan to grab maximum profit on the last two days of the holy month when people throng markets to buy chicken for Eid.

PPA’s public relations official Abdul Maroof Siddiqui reiterated that the closure of 30 per cent of farms in Sindh had resulted in price hikes of poultry as demand increases in Ramazan.

He said that bulk of the demand (80 per cent) comes from caterers and hoteliers during Ramazan while consumers’ share of daily buying stands at 20 per cent.

He claimed that out of 5,000 farms in Sindh, some 3,500 are operating while the rest closed down in the last six months as they could not sustain huge losses when prices went below their cost of production.

The demand of live broiler bird in Karachi hovers between 500,000 and 550,000 birds daily, but currently only 350,000-400,000 birds are being slaughtered owing to short supply from poultry farms, he added.

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