The proposal was made at a meeting chaired by the Commerce Minister Makhdoom Amin Fahim on Thursday, which took a serious notice of the price hike in meat and live animals. — File Photo

ISLAMABAD: To check rising meat prices, the commerce ministry has proposed to impose a ban on export of meat and live animals for three months as the country is facing shortages of goats and cattle.

The proposal would be submitted to the cabinet and the ECC for approval.

The proposal was made at a meeting chaired by the Commerce Minister Makhdoom Amin Fahim on Thursday, which took a serious notice of the price hike in meat and live animals.

The meeting observed that there are several other factors contributing to the increase in meat prices, which include death of around 1.5 million animals in devastating floods last year and the smuggling of animals to the neighbouring countries.

The meeting expressed serious concern over huge increase in prices of mutton from average of Rs271 to Rs406 per kg and that of beef from Rs154 to Rs241 per kg between 2008 and 2011.

To maintain the prices during the upcoming Ramazan and Eid-ul-Azha the minister said that bold steps are needed to check the rising meat prices.

“This would help in bridging the demand-supply gap and bring meat and animal prices down so that poor people can also afford the red meat,” he said, adding that steps are also needed to control smuggling of meat and animals.

The meeting was informed that a number of projects had been initiated in the country to increase the production of livestock under the Public Private Partnership programme, National Economic Growth, Poverty Alleviation, Food Security, improved livestock service delivery, opportunities for farmers livelihood, and enhanced foreign exchange earnings.

Historically, ministry of commerce has always been in favour of exporting value- added products like meat, meat products and finished leather goods as the export of live animals adversely affects local meat and leather industry.

The officials of the ministry said that the government was in the process of establishing Halal food certification system, which will allow the export of value added products instead of live animals.

Pakistan exported 95,523 live animals during July–March period in the previous fiscal year.

In a late night calrification issued by the ministry of commerce, it was stated that the issue to ban export of meat and live animals  was discussed at the meeting and it was agreed that a proposal to this effect would be submitted to the Cabinet and ECC for approval.