KARACHI: Five to seven million dollars import orders for fruits and vegetable are expected to be received before the end of 4-day 9th Expo Pakistan 2015 that began on Thursday last at Expo Centre Karachi.
Waheed Ahmed, Chairman, FPCCI Standing Committee on Fruits and Vegetable Exports, and Co-chairman, All Pakistan Fruits and Vegetable Importers, Exporters and Merchants Association talking to APP at the Expo on Friday said that fruits and vegetable exports have increased 15 percent increase every year and hoped this rate will be higher in future.
"Last year, the exports from our sector were dollars 625 million which are expected to boost to dollars 1.5 billion in three years and this will touch the figure of dollars six billion in 10 years."
He said the delegates mainly from South America and Africa have shown great interest. However, follow-ups and exchange of delegations were needed to properly introduce Pakistani fruits and vegetable in the international market.
He said they have gone to value-addition that is, mango and guava pulp, tomatoe paste and apple juice, besides initiating research and development (R&D) on dates. He called upon the government to focus on R&D to get higher yield of fruits and vegetable for boosting exports along with welfare of growers. This should include introduction of drip irrigations system and a strong check over wastage of water in fields.
The Government should bring better polices on growing and marketing sides of fruits and vegetable to exploit the real potential of this sector, he said. He said after four years, with improvement in power supply position, the exporters of fruits and vegetable would go for value-addition at a large scale and that would increase exports to at least $ 200 billion.
Waheed Ahmed said the association was trying to enter African markets. At present, the buyers are Russia, United Arab Emerirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, United Kingdom, Kuwait, Philpine, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Bangladesh, Mauritius and Canada.
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