Russia is likely to become a major destination of Pakistan's mandarin kinnos within one year, said Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Pakistan Horticulture Development and Export Board (PHDEB), Shamoon Sadiq in an interview with APP.
The value of Russia's annual imports of citrus stands at $250 million.
"In the wake of Pakistani exporters' recent visit to Russian federation about 20 containers of kinnos have so far been shipped to that Eurasian country," he said.
He hoped that the level of exports of kinnos to Russia was expected to touch the mark of 100 containers by mid April.
"If the things go on smoothly, Pakistan is likely to have export orders for 1,000 containers of 'kinnos' next year," Shamoon hoped.
The major competitors in the Russian market are Morocco, Spain, Israel and Egypt.
Shamoon said that the PHDEB was making efforts to diversify the geographical destinations of Pakistan's citrus group. At present most of Pakistani 'kinno' was being exported to Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and Dubai.
He said that the kinno processing plants in the district of Sargodha and Khushab were working in three shifts to meet the demand for Pakistani fruit abroad.
He said that the 'kinno' exporters should not compromise on the internationally recognised quality standards.
Responding to a question, Shamoon said that Pakistan was exporting only seven percent of 'kinno' production.
He said that the citrus growers were being imparted training in Integrated Pest Management (IPM), post-harvest technologies and marketing.
Comments
Comments are closed.