KARACHI: In collaboration with its partners in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, a Pakistani meat processor and exporter is investing Rs4.5 billion, or approximately $29 million, to establish a modern farm and slaughter house to breed animals and produce meat, company officials said on Thursday.

“We have acquired 135 acres of land in Chunian, near Lahore, to set up a modern animal production farm that will have state-of-the-art facilities,” Abdul Hannan, the managing partner of Tazij Meat and Foods, told Arab News.

“We have acquired a barren land for the livestock and agriculture project that will initially cost Rs4.5 billion,” he continued. “The work on the project will start in March 2020.”

The company, which mostly exports meat to the Middle East, has attracted investment from individual investors belonging to Gulf states. “Our foreign partners are from Bahrain and the UAE,” Hannan informed.

The South Asian nation mainly exports meat to the Gulf region along with Malaysia and Vietnam, but remains out of the Chinese market due to the stringent quarantine standards.

The export of meat and meat preparations has shown unusual growth during the current fiscal year, though the country’s overall exports have declined by one percent.

During July-November 2019, the exports of meat and meat preparations increased by 53.4 percent to $126.5 million as compared to the same period during the last fiscal year (FY19). Overall, meat and meat preparations exports went up by eight percent to $242.8 million during FY20, according to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics.

Hannan informed that the company already had a slaughter house with modern facilities that could process up to 500 heads of cattle and 1000 sheep/goats every day. “To meet the future export and local demand, however, we are going to set up a state-of-the-art slaughter house in Lahore,” he added.

Explaining the concept of the project, he said that the idea was to raise animals in their natural environment amid plants that grow on all types of land. “Keeping in view the nutritious value of food, cheap and organic fodder for animals is a major focus of the project.”

Livestock, a subarea of the agriculture sector, has surpassed the crop sub-sector with a contribution of 60.5 percent. It also added 11.2 percent to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the country during 2018-19.

The gross value addition of livestock has increased from Rs1.38 trillion to Rs1.44 trillion in fiscal year 2018-19, recording a four percent growth over the same period in the last year, according to the Economic Survey of Pakistan.