FAISALABAD: Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (FCCI) must present viable suggestions for new industrial policy in addition to submitting proper applications to get the facility of APO/NPO experts or conducting study missions to follow best practices in their relevant sectors said Muhammad Alamgir Chaudhry, Chief Executive Officer National Productivity Organization (NPO).
In a meeting with Dr Sajjad Arshad, Acting President FCCI, he said that NPO would provide printed material in soft form regarding facilities offered by this organization for dissemination among the industrial community. He stressed the need for value addition in agriculture products and quoted his recent visit to Thailand which has excelled in dehydration of fruits and vegetables.
He said that Thailand is importing frozen strawberries to prepare its chips along with potato chips for export purposes. He said that NPO is organizing workshops regarding this facility at provincial level for the information and awareness of the local farmers. He said that a workshop could also be arranged at Faisalabad.
He said that post-harvest losses have been estimated around 35-40% which could be controlled through value addition and developing the processing industry. He said that the value of Rs. 10 per kg of tomatoes could be enhanced to Rs. 250 through value addition. He also quoted the example of apricot of Hunza which was sold at Rs. 200 per kg.
“Agha Khan Foundation provided them skills to dehydrate it”, he said and added that now they are exporting the dehydrated apricot at Rs. 2,000.
He also mentioned the exotic taste of “Chunsa” mango and said that a pilot project for mango pulp was established in Multan while now 7-8 such units are successfully working in this field.
He said that the world demand of mango pulp is 2 lac tonnes per annum and out of it 80% is being provided by India alone. He said that our mango is far better than Indian quality and it could be used for the manufacturing of many derivatives including jam and squash etc.
He further said that production of electricity and controlling wastage of electricity are two separate issues and industrialists must avail the facility of NPO to check the wastage of electricity in their concerned units.
Acting President FCCI Dr Sajjad Arshad underlined the need of value addition in agriculture products and said that increase in production without value addition may be detrimental to the growers. He said that we had a bumper maize crop but its price has come down to the lowest inflicting losses to the farming community.
He said that through value addition we could save farmers from such losses. He further said that Pakistan is exporting rice worth $2.5bn which could be increased to $5bn in 2025 and $10bn in 2030. He said that our textile exports have been trimmed from 14bn to $11bn while foreign remittances are also in declining mode.
He said that we failed to adopt new technologies only due to the inconsistency and uncertainty in government policies.
About poultry, he said that the quality of our products is equal to the US only due to the non-interference of the government in this sector. He said that we should also work on the promotion of the dairy sector which offers multiple avenues of value addition and progress.
Dr Sajjad Arshad said that we should focus on practical steps to enhance productivity instead of indulging ourselves in blame games by only identifying the problems.
Engineer Ahmad Hassan Convener FCCI Standing Committee on R&D said that FCCI has been making serious efforts to increase productivity but there is dire need to declare wastage of energy as a criminal offense instead of leaving it on the choice of entrepreneurs.
Later Dr Sajjad Arshad presented FCCI shield to Muhammad Alamgir Chaudhry, CEO NPO.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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