PM agrees in principle to shift the Sugar Advisory Board on Khusro Bakhtiar’s request
ISLAMABAD:
Prime Minister Imran Khan has agreed in principle to transfer the Sugar Advisory Board (SAB) from the Ministry of Industries to some other ministry in view of the newly appointed industry minister’s refusal to chair the board due to conflict of interest.
During a recent cabinet reshuffle, the prime minister elevated Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtiar to federal minister for industries. He was earlier heading a relatively less important Ministry of Economic Affairs.
Bakhtiar’s family has stakes in the Rahim Yar Khan (RYK) Group that owns five sugar mills with a total production capacity of 637,691 metric tons and has 12.24% share in total national production capacity.
Sugar Advisory Board to be transferred from industry ministry
Prime Minister Imran Khan has agreed in principle to transfer the Sugar Advisory Board (SAB) from the Ministry of Industries to some other ministry in view of the newly appointed industry minister’s refusal to chair the board due to conflict of interest.
During a recent cabinet reshuffle, the prime minister elevated Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtiar to federal minister for industries. He was earlier heading a relatively less important Ministry of Economic Affairs.
Bakhtiar’s family has stakes in the Rahim Yar Khan (RYK) Group that owns five sugar mills with a total production capacity of 637,691 metric tons and has 12.24% share in total national production capacity.
Daily Times Pakistan is fourth largest milk producer in world, with buffalo milk accounting for 60% of total yield
April 22, 2021
Buffalo milk could add to Pakistan’s forex as Chinese entrepreneurs show interest for investment in this sector, it was reported by China Economic Net (CEN) quoting Chen Yiyi, President of China’s Royal Group.
Chen Yiyi told China-Pakistan Agricultural and Industrial Cooperation Information Platform (CPAIC) after a week-long visit to Pakistan that the country is rich in buffalo breeds, buffalo research, and buffalo milk manufacturing. “To leverage its advantages and enhance Pakistan-China cooperation in this field, we hope to set up a dairy processing plant in Pakistan,” Chen added.
âBumper mango production expected this yearâ
Abdul Ghaffar Grewal, the Director of the Mango Research Institute, has said that a bumper production of mangoes like Sindhary, Chaunsa, and Samar Bahasht is expected this year. He stated that the Pakistan government has set a target to export 160,000 tons of mango and similarly, generation of 120 million dollars by export of the value-added products of the king of fruits.
Abdul Ghaffar added that the Ministry of National Food Security established a special committee comprised of officials from agriculture and some other departments to conduct regular meetings and immediately remove all sorts of obstacles in the way of mango exports.
Okara hit headlines in international media during General Musharraf’s regime when tenants of military dairy farms, spread over thousands of acres in the district along the National Highway, resisted the army administration’s plans to change around a century-old Batai system into a rent system in 2000.
This led to a movement for ownership rights by tenants ploughing the fields since 1913, when the land was given by the Punjab government to the military on a 20-year lease that was never renewed. The ongoing struggle has resulted in the deaths of over a dozen tenants inviting the attention of human rights watchdogs across the globe.