ISLAMABAD: While the poultry crisis has begun to subside after the government released genetically modified soybean and canola seeds that had been stranded at ports, more than 100 containers of onions are held up at ports awaiting extension in duty and tax exemption leading to a further surge in vegetable prices across the country, Dawn learnt from official sources on Wednesday.

According to Karachi Port Trust Shipping data, over 6,000 tonnes of Canola and nearly 7,000 tonnes of soya bean seeds had been offloaded over the past 48 hours.

Containers loaded with onions are piling up at ports in the wake of withdrawal of sales tax and withholding tax, official sources said.

Incidentally, the Minister for Food Security Tariq Bashir Cheema had recently defended the decision to stop the import of genetically modified organism (GMO) seeds in the country claiming that it was poisonous and unfit for human consumption.

More than 100 containers of onions stranded at ports awaiting extension in duty, tax exemption

As a result, nine ships including five carrying can­ola and four loaded with soybeans were conta­ined at Karachi ports, lea­d­ing to lack of key raw material for chicken feed.

The seeds have been imp­o­rted by edible oil mills and All Pakistan Solvent Extra­ct­ors’ Association (APSEA) maintains that all exporting countries including the United States, Brazil, Argentina produce genetically modified soybean.

“Even the EU was importing GMO soybean from the US for poultry and cattle feed and we have to find a way too,” said Nawab Shehzad Ali, patron in chief of APSEA.

As the feed mills were unable to meet the dema­nds of poultry farms, the price of live broiler chicken had crossed Rs450 per kg and the price of chicken meat soared to Rs850 per kg. Due to shortage of soybean meal, the price of a 50kg chicken feed bag had reached over Rs7,000 with an increase of around Rs2,000 in merely three months.

However, on Wednesday, the rate of live broiler chicken was around Rs350 per kg in various markets as the price has dropped by around Rs100 in four days. This declining trend will continue as the gover­nment has started to rel­ease nine consignments of oil seeds stranded at Kar­achi port and the means of these seeds is used by feed mills to produce chicken and cattle feed.

A wholesaler in Karachi also said that prices of live birds and their meat have fallen by Rs40 per kg and Rs60-Rs70 per kg respectively in the last two days.

Mian Tariq Javed, president of Punjab Poultry Far­mers Association, beli­e­ved the solution to averting such crises in future was to allow import of soybean meal directly. This would encourage competition among oil mills.

There are 113 mills in Pun­jab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa while there are 13 feed mills in Sindh and Balochistan consuming around two million tonnes of soybean meal annually.

Meanwhile, official sources told Dawn on Wednesday containers of onions were piling up at ports in the wake of withdrawal of sales tax and withholding tax leading to a further surge in the price of the vegetable in domestic market.

More than 100 containers of onions are held up at ports awaiting extension in duty and tax exemption, a senior customs official said, adding importers were reluctant to clear the vegetables on payment of duty and taxes.

At import stage, government charged a 17pc sales tax, 3pc additional sales tax, and 1pc withholding tax on import of onions and tomatoes since January 1, 2023.

An official source in the FBR said there was no indication from the government to further exempt all duty and taxes on onions and tomatoes imports. “We have not received any intimation from the government,” the source said, adding that onion price would further escalate in coming days due to a drop in imports.

Since January 1, only 6,000 metric tons of onions are cleared from Afghanistan. No data is available on the quantity of import of onions and tomatoes from Iran at Gwadar customs station and Taftan customs stations.

A customs official said there was no clearance for tomatoes and onions at Gwadar since January 1, 2023. At Taftan border customs station, only four vehicles of onions were marked for tax examination in the past 11 days.

Aamir Shafaat Khan in Karachi also contributed to this report

Published in Dawn, January 12th, 2023