By A Staff Reporter
Kathmandu, Oct. 9: Food Management and Trading Company (FMTC), a public enterprise, is all set to sell live goats for the Dashain festival from Saturday.
The Company will begin to sell goats from its Thapathali depot from Saturday morning after the goats started arriving in Kathmandu from Friday, said Shrimani Raj Khanal, deputy general manager of the FMTC.
About 530 goats arrived in Kathmandu by Friday evening and the remaining will come gradually till Tuesday, he said.
The FMCT has planned to sell around 2,000 goats, bringing them from Hetauda and Dang.
However, it will not sell mountain goats this year.

“We were unable to buy the mountain goats this year due to their high price in Mustang,” he said. Earlier, it had set a plan to bring around 1,500 mountain goats from Mustang. The FMTC had failed to sell mountain goats even last year due to price hike caused by short supply.
Khanal said that the FMTC had directed the concerned office to purchase additional 1,000 goats to sell this year after being unable to sell them as per its earlier plan.
He said that the Company had fixed the selling price with a discount of Rs. 10 per kilogram, making a kilogram of live goat available at Rs. 640.

The price of goats has increased by Rs.100 per kg this year compared with that in the previous year due to increase in purchase price, he said. Last year, it sold a kg of live goat at Rs. 540.
He said that they fixed the selling price of goats considering the purchasing price and transportation cost including very nominal profit margin.
Khanal said that the price fixed by the company was comparatively cheaper than that being sold by the private trader.

“The company will sell a very small number of animals compared to their demand. Our objective is to control the artificial price of traders," he said.
Stating that it was the responsibility of the FMTC to sell quality and healthy goats to the consumers, he assured that the FMTC's goats would be healthy.

Chyangras price doubles, goats up by Rs. 100 per kg
The price of goats is still more than the price fixed by the FMTC in the market.
Deepak Thapa, president of the Nepal Livestock Traders Association, said that price of live goats increased by up to Rs. 100 per kg this festival compared to this time last year.
Local live goats cost Rs. 680 to Rs. 670 per kg this year while it was Rs. 600-620 per kilogram last year.

The price of mountain goats is set to double this year as they are not being imported from China. Entrepreneurs have increased the prices saying that the production is low and demand is high in Mustang.
The price of a live mountain goat has reached at Rs. 1,300 to Rs. 1,400 per kg this year and readymade meat will reach above Rs. 3,500 to Rs. 4,500 per kg, Thapa said.
According to him, a live mountain goat was sold at the rate of Rs. 700 to Rs. 800 per kg last year and meat at Rs. 2,000 per kg.

Thapa said that around 4,500 mountain goats are expected to be sold in Kathmandu while around 7,000 was sold last year.