Sesame exporters achieve breakthrough

Win big orders from Chinese firms, likely to become top suppliers

BEIJING:

A delegation of 23 sesame seed exporters from Pakistan visited Beijing and Handan city of Hebei province near Beijing from August 18 to 21, where they got big orders from Chinese companies and expected to become Pakistan's top exporters of sesame seeds this year.

On August 19, the delegation attended Pakistan China B2B Sesame Conference at Pakistan Embassy in Beijing.

The conference was arranged by the mission and China National Grains Association (CNAGS). It was inaugurated by Pakistan's Ambassador Khalil Hashmi and CNAGS Vice President Wang Zhenzhong.

Delegation leader Hafiz Saad bin Mustafa spoke on the occasion. An analyst from the SCI Group made a presentation, highlighting the demand and supply situation in the Chinese market and related price dynamics.

The conference was attended by 19 top Chinese enterprises interested in importing sesame seeds from Pakistan including Cofco, Beijing Capital Agribusiness & Foods Group, Jingliang Holdings, Hebei Grain Group and Zhuochuang Consulting Co Ltd. The delegation also visited Daming County of Handan city. Daming consumes 20% of Chinese sesame imports and currently imports over 200,000 tonnes of sesame seeds per annum whereas Chinese imports for the whole year comprise 1 million tonnes.

Daming currently imports from Ethiopia, Mozambique, India and others and has thus far negligible imports from Pakistan.

The visit of the delegation provided a wonderful opportunity to reach out to new importers and expand exports to Daming. The delegation toured four top factories in Daming, which import large quantities of sesame seeds for producing food products and sesame oil. The companies included Jing Xinquan Sesame Oil, Wudelli Flour, Daming Fu Sesame Oil and Taidu Group.

During the seminar, detailed conversations were held between the two sides about prices, quantities, quality and flavour of sesame exports from Pakistan.

It was decided that an agreement would be finalised to support Pakistan's exports to the county through establishing a warehousing facility.