PPA terms recent surge in prices temporary

ISLAMABAD: The recent price hike in poultry products is temporary and due to big gap in supply and demand, Pakistan Poultry Association (PPA) Central Chairman Khalid Saleem Malik said on Wednesday.

He also held increasing prices of inputs, including medicines feed and other variables responsible for the upward trend in poultry prices.

Talking to APP, Malik said that because of low production of maize and soybean crops in the country, farmers have to import seed from Brazil and other countries, which caused the price hike in the poultry feed.

The poultry chicken prices were maintained by the wholesale market, which totally relied on the demand and supply of poultry birds.

A large portion of the local poultry production was shut down due to heavy losses incurred owing to spread of diseases among birds and climate changes.

Prices of poultry products witnessed sharp increase during the last few weeks, as the prices of live chicken and chicken meat have touched their highest levels.

The live chicken was sold at Rs190 per kg, which was available at Rs115 to Rs120 per kg during the last couple of weeks in the open retail markets of the twin cities.

The lower and middle income population is now unable to purchase chicken meat, which is the cheapest source of protein intake due to its high prices.

Despite significant reduction in the input prices, including gas and electricity charges, besides manifold reduction in petroleum prices, the increasing trend of chicken prices is not justified, he said.

According to market study, the main reason behind increase in poultry prices is attributed to artificial supply and demand gap, which was created by certain elements in order to create cartel for artificial price hike.

Regarding its intervention in the matter and in order to safeguard the consumer rights, an official of the Competitive Commission of Pakistan (CCP) said that the commission has taken notice of the issue.

The official said that the CCP has issued an order imposing a fine of Rs100 million on the Pakistan Poultry Association (PPA) for price fixing of products in violation of Section 4 of the Competition Act 2010.

The official also said that PPA's actions have potential of influencing pricing trends in the market and manipulating the behaviour of the market players.

Pakistan Poultry Association was previously fined an amount of Rs50 million by the CCP for violation of the same provisions.

PPA former president Hassan Sarosh said that the recent hike in poultry products prices is temporary and the association would evolve consensus to provide cheap poultry products to common man in the middle of this month.

Representatives of Chicken Wholesale Dealers Association Abdul Majeed and Bilal Shoukat said that the prices have gone up because of shortage of chicken in the poultry farms.

They said a large number of chickens were killed due to unexpected weather in the country, particularly in the Potohar Region.

Chicken prices may further increase in the coming days, they warned.

A shopkeeper in Aabpara Market Muhammad Ramzan said that the increase in price was due to the widening gap between demand and supply.

Akhtar Hashmi, a salesman, said that the chicken outlets are getting less supply of chicken for the last three days. Its demand had not decreased and the people are still consuming chicken, he said.