KARACHI: A leading Pakistani meat processing and exporting company has resumed exporting chilled fresh meat to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) by sea, a senior official of the company confirmed on Wednesday, saying it had improved its products’ packaging to comply with the standards imposed by UAE authorities. 

Last month, the UAE said it would stop importing chilled fresh meat from Pakistan via sea from October 10 as an unnamed company had supplied “sub-quality” products to its markets. Pakistan exports meat worth around $144 million per year to the UAE.

However, no restriction was placed on exports via air transportation, with the condition that the meat was vacuum-or-modified atmosphere-packed and had a shelf life of 60 to 120 days from the date of slaughter. Pakistani meat exporters feared the volume of meat exported in total would go down by two-third after the ban, as Pakistan would only be able to export meat via air, which is comparatively expensive and has its own limitations. 

Faisal Hussain, the chief executive officer of the Karachi-based Organic Meat Company Limited (TOMCL), a leading meat processor and exporter, said his company’s shipments to the UAE have resumed. “Regarding fresh shipments via sea which were halted by the UAE, I can confirm that we have continued with our exports and at current speed, we’ll be back on the same level hopefully in the next 8-10 days,” Hussain told Arab News. 

Hussain said sample productions of the meat were dispatched and had been approved by the UAE authorities, after which regular shipments started to leave for the country last week. 

“So there are no issues with GCC, and UAE exports will continue,” he said. 

Hussain said UAE authorities had asked Pakistani meat companies to improve their packaging standards to ensure their products have an enhanced shelf life. The TOMCL CEO said his company was equipped to comply with the UAE’s packaging standards. Hussain said his company was also helping industry players learn new processes to comply with the UAE’s packaging standards. 

“I’m helping my entire industry, especially people from Karachi because exports to the UAE were being done from here,” he said. “I am helping all the slaughterhouses. “In fact, I have trained people in those slaughterhouses also on how to conduct the process or packaging, and where they can get the packaging done, and where to get the machines from,” he added. 

Hussain hoped the efforts would bear fruit and that Pakistan’s meat industry would return to the level it was at a month ago, before the ban was announced. 

Pakistan is one of the largest meat producers in the world. Over the past decade, the country has become one of the fastest-growing meat exporters, capitalizing on its competitive advantage to supply meat to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, as per the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP). TDAP is the export arm of the Pakistani government. 

“The GCC market is good,” Hussain said. “We have two main markets: one is the UAE and the second is Saudi Arabia, where we are also having a much larger footprint for frozen products as compared to the past and it continues to increase in both markets.” 

Hussain said his company has received an order of 2,000 metric tons of frozen boneless beef from the UAE and also received authorization to export “red and white offal,” both frozen and fresh vacuum-packed. 

“So, we are hoping that this product will have an impact in the market as it is a new thing that has started [being exported] from Pakistan,” Hussain said. 

Hussain said the market share of frozen boneless meat was increasing in Saudi Arabia. 

“Saudi work is increasing again in frozen boneless meat, in private labeling month-on-month,” he said. “So, we are also having a much larger footprint in the Saudi market for frozen products as compared to the past.”

The company announced earlier this month that it became Pakistan’s first and only company to secure approvals from GACC (General Administration of Customs of the People’s Republic of China) to export “cooked/heat treated frozen beef” to China. According to TOMCL’s annual report, it increased its export revenues by 36.35 percent, on net basis whereas its export volumes increased by 0.57 percent. 

The exports of meat and meat by-products from Pakistan increased by over 25 percent to $427 million during the last fiscal year, while these exports increased by 20 percent to $113 million during the first three months of the current fiscal year, according to official data.