EDITORIAL: The 2nd International Food and Agriculture Exhibition – “FoodAg-2024”, organised by TDAP, which fetched more than $1.2 billion worth of deals – is just the shot in the arm that the sagging agriculture sector needs to revive its fortunes.
The three-day event attracted about 800 buyers from 75 countries, including international chains, buyers and MNCs as 330 exporters put “500 quality products” up for grabs.
Most of the deals would have been worked out ahead of time, no doubt, but the event went many steps further and provided the kind of B2B networking opportunities that have the potential to provide Pakistani agri exporters precious footholds across continents.
Indeed, TDAP reported that 36 MoUs were signed by countries, including China, Malaysia, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Russia, Sri Lanka, France and Gambia, and further possibilities were discussed in rice, processed foods, sea foods, oranges, potatoes, lentils, chickpeas, mangoes, confectionery, meat, spices, cereals and oil seeds.
That is quite an achievement already. Now, if the textbook is to be trusted, returns should come with a multiplier effect, with subsequent exhibitions and conferences providing further push. If such steps had been taken much earlier, Pakistan would never have suffered the embarrassment of turning from a natural comparative advantage agri exporter to a net importer.
Such steps not only help carve out new business deals and fresh markets and attract investors, but they also buoy production at home and unlock potential lost due to the loss of competitiveness.
Full marks, then, to TDAP for making this happen. Still, the commerce ministry has been criminally slow in getting the ball rolling in finding new export destinations. But now that it has started implementing what is clearly a very good idea, this must be replicated across the board and applied to other sectors as well.
Pakistan is in desperate need of foreign exchange that does not come in the form of loans.
The leadership has already proved a disappointment when it comes to attracting foreign investment, to the point that FDI does not even count as a significant head in the current account anymore, yet there’s still room to breathe some fresh life into exports.
It’s interesting that China, our biggest foreign investor, stood out for its participation in FoodAg-2024 as well. It brought the largest contingent, with 150 buyers, and Chinese companies signed some $35 million worth of export contracts with Pakistani counterparts, including MoUs in the sea food sector.
Successive administrations have talked about increasing Pakistan’s footprint in the international sea food and halal meat markets, but little has been done so far that stands out. Hopefully, that will start to change as countries other than China also begin to show interest because of long-delayed initiatives of the commerce ministry.
Success in enhancing exports will relieve a lot of pressure on the current account. Pakistan truly stands at a crossroads. It’s true that the IMF programme, which should be green-lighted soon, will make us push through three more years – that is if all its conditions are periodically met – but there’s still no guarantee for the day after.
The structural reforms that it will hinge on will be very painful; hence the last-minute scramble for more conventional means of generating foreign exchange.
Should the FoodAg initiative work – which it should – then there will be some good news, and a little more breathing space, down the road, although not without its own time lag.
Now that TDAP has been properly mobilised, it’s important to turn its focus to all sectors that have the potential to lure foreign buyers to Pakistan. Time is of the essence like never before, so hopefully it would have done some homework by now.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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