KARACHI:Pakistan Businesses Forum (PBF) Vice President Ahmad Jawad said in a statement on Friday that investing in horticulture could reap many positive benefits in the form of employment since the rural population was dependent on agriculture for sustenance.
“This can also create a significant impact on poverty reduction and positively affect macroeconomic indicators. Chile, China, and India reaped rich dividends through investment on value-addition in agriculture, especially in horticulture products. Tanzania, a poor country, was able to make massive economic strides through investment,” he said.
Jawad unfold the details that in ten years after getting approval for zero rating duty under the generalized system of preferences and investing high hopes in the USA market, mangoes are failing to make any impact. Exporters have not been able to access a major market which spends well over $0.5bn on imports.
“A modern irradiation facility was to be set up by Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission in Lahore. The Pakistan Horticulture Development and Export Company (PHDEC) leading the initiative was rendered virtually dormant because Ministry of Commerce was earlier refused to pay salary and other allowances to USDA inspector for inspecting the mango shipments, as USDA Agriculture Counsellor was agreed at one point to approved local irradiation facility for US with certain conditions, he added.
“That’s why till date, exporters complain the process of export to the US is lengthy and costly. The highest freight charges calculated at Rs400 for each kilograms is the biggest deterrence. What makes exports virtually impossible is the fact that mangoes have to be irradiated at the US facilities, which involves booking and trucking the cargo to a particular facility, completing the irradiation process and taking it back to the market,” he said.
Each kilograms costs around $8 for making it saleable in the US market. However commerce ministry, under which the PHDEC works, also in thinking process that it should not be running organizations like PHDEC because the entire agriculture sector horticulture being only a part of it now rests with the province. That is why the public sector company who based in Islamabad has been without a full time CEO for the last one-and-a-half year, and going without a sufficient and regular budget, regardless horticulture exports is still a federal budget and government continually to ignore this organization from the last eight years and that’s one of the factor Pakistan horticulture exports didn’t take off to touch $1 billion in this time, he concluded.