ISLAMABAD: With the introduction of seedless citrus variety, country's kinnow exports are expected to grow multifold and get share of $1 billion in the world citrus market.
Currently, the world market for citrus is valued $2.135 billion in which Pakistan's share has remained $33 million per annum, just around 2.5 percent.
"Pakistani kinnow could not exploit the potential European markets due to large number of seeds in the fruit and consequently the country had to export its citrus to low priced countries that affected its price," Chief Executive Officer, Harvest Trading, Ahmad Jawad said here Wednesday.
The European countries mostly import citrus fruits from USA, New Zealand and some of Arab states besides Spain and Morocco.
While, Iran, Russia, Ukraine, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, are the largest export markets for Pakistani Kinnow.
Jawad said, now Pakistan has been able to develop the new variety and is expected to begin exporting seedless kinnow citrus shortly that would multiply citrus shipments and attract Europe markets.
"We are looking forward to have 3 to 5 seeds each fruit as compared to 20 to 25 seeds each piece," Javed told APP adding that higher number of seeds in the fruit was the sole reason behind the neglected importance given to Pakistani fruit by the Europeans markets.
"This problem is finally resolved and the demand of European markets would be met now," he said adding that now the Pakistani scientists were working hard to start mass production of seedless kinnow fruit in the country.
Jawad said that research revealed that Europeans consider seeds to cause stomach disorder as every seed of kinnow has a specific chemical material that sometimes disturb the stomach.
He said the seedless kinnow would be able to compete in the international market, as these would not be hazardous for the human health in any way. Besides, the methods used for its production include natural selection as well as the genetic manipulation.
Jawad further said that Pakistan produces 95 percent of total world kinnow production while it is the sixth largest producer of Kinnow (mandarin) and oranges in the world, with 2.5 million tones.
He said there are around 200 Kinnow processing units in the country and most of these have been established quite recently and are contributing a lot in enhancing the quality of Kinnow for export purposes in District Sargodha.
"Once the seedless varieties start bringing fruit, it will help generate precious and much-needed foreign exchange for the country which goes up $ 1 billion extra," he said.
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