{"id":4053,"date":"2025-06-25T09:26:54","date_gmt":"2025-06-25T04:26:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/youdigital.pk\/en\/?p=4053"},"modified":"2025-06-25T11:44:59","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T06:44:59","slug":"high-gst-hurting-dairy-sector-as-loose-milk-floods-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/youdigital.pk\/en\/2025\/06\/25\/high-gst-hurting-dairy-sector-as-loose-milk-floods-market","title":{"rendered":"High GST Hurting Dairy Sector as Loose Milk Floods Market"},"content":{"rendered":"

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Dairy Association (PDA) has warned that the imposition of 18% GST on the dairy sector has damaged the formal industry while boosting unsafe loose milk consumption.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tax revenue from dairy surged from Rs. 13.72 billion in FY 2023-24 to Rs. 44 billion in FY 2024-25 after the tax hike.<\/p>\n

However, industry sales dropped by 20%, and 500 processing units shut down, causing significant job losses.<\/p>\n

Tax Burden Driving Consumers Away<\/strong>
Chairman of PDA, Usman Zaheer, told the media that the 18% GST has priced packaged milk out of reach for many.<\/p>\n

With prices reaching Rs. 350 per liter, 64% of consumers earning below Rs. 50,000 a month are turning back to loose milk.<\/p>\n

The association has offered to reduce packaged milk prices by Rs. 50 per liter if the GST is reduced to 5%.
PDA argues that a lower tax rate could increase dairy volumes by 20%, revive investments, and raise tax revenues by 22%.<\/p>\n

Pakistan\u2019s packaged milk sector has also seen export success, doubling to $35 million this year, including shipments to the Middle East and Central Asia.<\/p>\n

The association is now eyeing exports to China.<\/p>\n

It further highlighted that over 100 countries do not impose tax on milk, suggesting Pakistan should adopt a similar policy.<\/p>\n

Health Risks and Informal Market Concerns<\/strong><\/p>\n

Despite safety risks, 92% of milk consumed in Pakistan is loose.<\/p>\n

An alarming 45% of this milk is deemed unfit for human use.<\/p>\n

Only 3\u20134% of the population consumes milk that meets international packaging and safety standards.<\/p>\n

PDA is urging the government to formalize the Rs. 1,300 billion undocumented loose milk market.<\/p>\n

They claim this would ensure safer milk for the public, increase government tax revenues, and bring balance to the struggling formal dairy sector.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Dairy Association (PDA) has warned that the imposition of 18% GST on the dairy sector has damaged the formal industry while boosting unsafe loose milk consumption. Tax revenue from dairy surged from Rs. 13.72 billion in FY 2023-24 to Rs. 44 billion in FY 2024-25 after the tax hike. However, industry sales …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":4054,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[1955,271,1930],"class_list":["post-4053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","tag-dairy","tag-economy","tag-nutrition"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/youdigital.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/youdigital.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/youdigital.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youdigital.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youdigital.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4053"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/youdigital.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4055,"href":"https:\/\/youdigital.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4053\/revisions\/4055"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youdigital.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/youdigital.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youdigital.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youdigital.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}