The establishment of export centre, close to Lahore airport with enough space to facilitate and ensure grading, packing and warehousing facilities for expeditious export of fruits and vegetables, appears to have been derailed, according to official sources here.
The idea was conceived way back in December 2004 by the Pakistan Horticulture Development and Export Board (PHDEB) and a meeting of leading exporters of fruits and vegetables and with PHDEB Board of Directors member Saadat Ejaz Qureshi, was held in Lahore, but no headway appears to have been made so far to translate the concept into reality.
The only move made in that direction was formation of an eight-member committee by PHDEB in January last year for site survey to locate suitable place for the establishment of the centre.
The committee was formed following a meeting of leading fruit and vegetable exporters with Special Secretary for Agricultural Marketing, Punjab, Captain Muhammad Yousaf (Retd), in the chair. The role of PHDEB in establishing working group and association of fruits and vegetable exporters to develop better understanding was highlighted by PHDEB Chief Executive Officer Shamoon Sadiq.
He said that the board was striving to overcome the quarantine and logistic issues in an amicable way. It was proposed to invite private sector for building cold storage facilities on commercial basis.
Saadat Ejaz Qureshi was nominated head of the committee. The necessity for having an export centre was felt in view of the constraints faced by fruit and vegetable exporters.
They also wanted the PHDEB to publish World Trade Organisation (WTO) awareness in Urdu language through "Hortimag", the in-house journal of PHDEB to educate the general masses.
The committee, comprised Mian Qasim, Khalid Pervaiz Bhatti, Malik Muhammad Amin, Muhammad Hanif, Munir Ahmad, Naeem Akhter of Punjab Agricultural Marketing and a representative of PHDEB.
Neither any meeting of this committee, which was formed in January 2005, has been held, nor are there any signs of its taking off in the near future.
Official sources said that the establishment of the centre was a sine qua non for the export of fruits and vegetables, which had big potential in foreign markets.
The world export market for horticulture produce is estimated at 80 billion dollars, of which Pakistan's share is minimal, just around 140 million dollars.
The PHDEB has been created due to the enormous potential but relatively insignificant contribution of Pakistan's horticulture products in the global.
In the absence of a single ministry or institution responsible for development at all levels of the horticulture value chain, it was considered important to set-up PHDEB to uplift this sector, especially in light of the impact of globalisation and the WTO regime.
Although the PHDEB has done a good job in pushing up the exports of Kinnow and mango to a record level, there are other fruits and vegetables, particularly dates and apple, which could capture foreign markets and bring foreign exchange with aggressive marketing in targeted areas.
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