LAHORE, Aug 16: Pakistan has great potential for livestock and dairy export and it must be tapped if the country is to come out of present economic limbo.

Federal Minister for Agriculture, Food and Livestock, Khair Mohammad Junejo stated this during a visit to Zenith Associates — a slaughter house recently cleared by the UAE and Saudi Arabia for export meat to these countries.

This big potential requires new exporters to join the export-run. It is because the prospective market was so big that one or two exporters would feel isolated once their orders expand and supplies shrink. For this reason, there must be at least 20 to 25 exporters tapping the whole world, Junejo said.

Current market of Pakistani exporters is limited to the Gulf states only, and this needed to be expanded to Europe. Due to diseases like Mad Cow and Foot and Mouth, European domestic supplies have dipped drastically; this gap could be filled by the Pakistani exporters if they plan properly.

The government, he said, was setting up a laboratory for quality testing. Under the World Trade Organization regime after 2004, it would only be quality that could determine share of any country. For this reason, the government was trying to prepare local exporters to compete at the world level.

The minister said that though livestock forms 38 per cent of the country’s agricultural economy, its share in the gross domestic product (GDP) was only 11 per cent. The meat exports were still hovering around Rs1 billion only. He asked his hosts to facilitate more investors in the livestock export process and help country stabilize economically.