First-ever Pakistani meat consignment exported to Jordan

ISLAMABAD: Adviser to the Prime Minister on Commerce and Trade Abdul Razak Dawood has said that Pakistan’s Tata Best Food Limited has exported the country’s first meat consignment to Jordan, Arab News reported on Monday.

Last month, Pakistan announced that Jordan had allowed three Pakistani producers to export meat to the kingdom. These are Organic Meat Company Limited (TOMCL), Tata Best Food Limited, Tazji Meat and Food.

Pakistan ranks in the top 20 among global halal meat exporting nations, and a 2017 study by the Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) showed that the industry was growing by 27 per cent annually.

The country’s exports of meat and meat preparations went up by 10 per cent in the last fiscal year to $334 million, though they declined by four per cent during the first two months of the current fiscal year to $49.55 million, according to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics.

“We congratulate TATA Foods on exporting Pakistan’s first ever consignment meat (that) has been exported to Jordan,” Dawood said on Twitter. “Promotion and facilitation of non-traditional products to new markets constitutes MOC’s [ministry of commerce] diversification policy.”

Last year, TOMCL became the first Pakistani company to get approval from the Saudi Food and Drug Authority to export frozen meat via sea to the kingdom, as it won a high-value contract of $3.9 million to export 100 metric tons of frozen boneless meat to Saudi Arabia.

In September, the Karachi-based halal meat processing and export enterprise secured a $1 million contract to supply frozen boneless meat to Saudi Arabia for a period of 10 months.