Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FPCCI) Standing Committee on Horticulture and Agriculture Production Chairman Ahmad Jawad said that value addition helps to widen market scope and reduce post harvest loses which gives the product a higher value.
He said that the processing and value addition is a necessary intervention in the mango sector to mitigate the staggering handling losses. As value addition of mangoes and dates and application of state-of-the-art techniques to preserve them will help the country earn hefty foreign exchange, he added.
Jawad said that the nation’s mango crop enjoyed limited access to exporting markets. Because of the unavailability of proper storage, big quantity of mangoes gets rotten. The use of advanced processing technology and preserving methods can prevent mangoes from being decayed. Jawad said that agriculture was the backbone of the country’s economy. He said that value addition and state-of-the-art preserving methods were vital to increasing exports.
Though Industry captains foresaw a bright future for food processing industry, Jawad believed that Pakistan can enhance mango export by 20-25 pc in next two to three years by value-addition and proper marketing strategy. He urged on value addition front, a capital subsidy may be given under the PSDP programme. Still major percent of Pakistani mangoes are shipped to Dubai and take their way into consumer markets of GCC countries.
However it is unfortunate that being the world’s largest producer and exporter of mangoes, India beats Pakistan, undoubtedly not in quality of the product, but in terms of a stronger functioning export mechanism, rigorous international marketing and a strategic mango diplomacy crusaded by their envoys in all parts of the world; Jawad added.
In the top producing nations India, Mexico, Thailand, Philippines, Pakistan, Nigeria, Indonesia, Brazil and Egypt are, in that particular order, the top ten mango producing countries.
While on imports, USA’s is the highest with 43.2 percent following with China, Hong Kong, Netherlands, UAE, France, Malaysia, UK and Saudi Arabia, Germany and Singapore are other major importers of the highly demanded fruit.
Source: The Nation