By Our Web Reporter
LAHORE – The Pakistan Poultry Association (PPA) has stated that the government has once again been attempting to disturb the demand and supply mechanism of the poultry industry by fixing chicken rates, resulting into huge drop in production capacity.
Pakistan Poultry Association (Northern Region) Vice-Chairman Ch Muhammad Fargham, in a press statement issued here on Wednesday, raised his serious concern over the government attempt of fixing rates of chicken, and said that the industry is extremely depressed by this illegal action of the authorities.
He said that the government on May 7 had fixed poultry meat rate at Rs260 per kg and the industry had opposed this decision, arguing the move will cause shortage of chicken, resulting into escalation in the prices of poultry products.
The government, on May 20, agreed with the leadership of the PPA and withdrawn its earlier decision of fixing official rate of poultry meat. But its unfortunate that just after two days of its commitment, the authorities have once again started interference in the demand and supply mechanism of poultry industry.
Ch Muhammad Fargham opposed the interference of the government to fix prices of poultry products, which are perishable items, saying the prices are controlled absolutely by the demand and supply mechanism under free market economy.
He said that this is the time when the farmers are trying to recover their annual losses, as they suffered huge loss throughout the year due to high cost of production and lower prices of chicken items in the market.
The Association has been fully intimating the government that the situation would lead to acute shortage of poultry products as the losses would result into reduction in production and that prices will shoot up.
The industry had advised the government that in the event of increase in price, supply would partially but gradually increase to some extent. We had strongly advised the government not to intervene in free market mechanism.
