KARACHI - Pakistan Poultry Association (PPA) Chairman Khalil Sattar has made an appeal to the Finance Minister to restore the ‘Zero Rating’ status for value added, processed, frozen and packed poultry products in the best interest of both the sector and masses.
In a letter to Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, Chairman PPA stated that after the withdrawal of zero rating status to the sector the cost of production of processed value-added chicken products has gone up by Rs 20 to 40 per kilogram.
In the budget 2013-14, zero rating was withdrawn from both the products. However, subsequently, zero rating on packed and all value added milk products has been restored but zero rating on packed value added chicken products has not been restored. ‘The withdrawal of zero rating on processed chicken has given a further edge to imported poultry products and to the unorganised sector because imported chicken under Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Malaysia is free of import duties and under FTA with China subject to 15pc import duty with sales tax exemption,’ reasoned the Chairman PPA.
Chairman PPA further said that presently out of the total agri products, which is about 21pc of the GDP, only cotton, wheat, oilseeds, partially milk and about 1pc of the poultry is in the tax net through processing and value addition, as rest of the produce is sold through unorganized, non-documented economy. ‘The only way of bringing the products into the tax net is by encouraging processing and value addition. The encouragement by way of providing fiscal incentives would help in documenting the agro economy to yield high revenues by way of Income Tax from processor, packing industry, distributors and so many other downstream industries,’ reasoned the Chairman PPA.