KARACHI: The All Pakistan Poultry Association and All Pakistan Solvent Extractors Association have conflicting views on the import of soyameal, which is an important animal feed and a by-product of the solvent industry.

There is no need to ban or impose dumping duty on the imports of soyameal from India in the coming budget, All Pakistan Poultry Association (APPA) said Monday.

Central convener APPA, Maroof Siddiqui said the poultry sector was importing soyameal from neighbouring countries because it was much cheaper than the local one.

He said, “If a ban is imposed on import of soyameal or import duty is enhanced to give undue protection to the solvent extraction industry, it may not only bring huge losses to the poultry industry but prices of chicken and eggs will also shoot up in the local market”. This would in turn fuel the food inflation, which has already touched its peak and has been cooling off recently.

He said around 1.75 million tonnes of poultry meal is required per annum while around 50 solvent extraction plants were operating in Pakistan, which, besides producing 548,000 tonnes of edible oil, were supplying refuse of the extracted sunflower, rapeseed and mustard for poultry meal.

Soy meal is the world’s most important vegetable protein feed source accounting for nearly 65 percent of World protein feed demand. About 98 percent of soy meal is used as an animal feed ingredient, with the remainder used in human foods such as bakery ingredients and meat substitutes.

Maroof said the local industry was catering around 45 percent need of poultry meal while there was no justification of the solvent industry to ask the government for banning or imposing dumping duty on the imports.

However, there is a controversy between the All Pakistan Solvent Extractors Association (APSEA) and All Pakistan Poultry Association over the import of soyameal from India.

The APSEA, however, feels that the import of soyameal from India is a serious threat to the existence of the solvent plants in Pakistan therefore it has lodged a strong protest with the government.

Spokesman of APSEA demanded a complete ban on import of soyameal from India and imposition of anti-dumping duty against, what it called, flooding of the Indian meal, otherwise they would take next course of action to decide their fate.

The solvent extractors were off the opinion huge quantities of sub-standard meal was being imported from India against dumping prices of Rs 22,500 per tonne against Rs 20,000 per tonne imported last year.

The import of cheaper meal from neighbouring countries is being made at the cost of local solvent plants, they said.

The Association also held a number of meetings with the Ministry of Food and Agriculture to convince the government that the import of soyameal is against the interest of the local solvent plants.

The solvent industry claimed it was producing high quality oilseed meals of about 210,000 tonnes from locally grown oilseeds.

If the locally produced meal was not encouraged by the poultry sector, the government’s programme for growing oilseeds may severely hit and the country would have no option but to rely on imports of edible oils.

By Razi Syed

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Source: www.dailytimes.com.pk