Mango processing unit starts its operations
Speaking at the launch ceremony on Saturday, Pakistan Hortifresh Processing Private Limited Chief Executive Babar Khan Durrani said that the hot water treatment plant will enable Pakistan to export its mangoes to new markets.
The new countries include South Korea, China, Hong Kong, Mauritius, Iran, Lebanon and Jordon while Australia is expected to soon approve imports as they recently inspected the facility, he added.
The plant is setup with public private partnership with an investment of Rs230 million out of which Rs80 million have been provided by Federal Minister for Commerce Makhdoom Amin Faheem.
Pakistan Hortifresh Processing will manage the plant but since it has pubic investment, the plant infrastructure will be used as a common facility centre for all mango exporters of the country.
The treatment plant not only improves the physical appearance of mangoes but it also removes fruit diseases owing to which many countries are reluctant to import Pakistani fruits, speakers said.
Pakistan Fruits and Vegetable Exporters Association former chairman Abdul Wahid said that the plant is a major development for Pakistan’s mango industry because it will add value to the fruit’s exports.
Waheed Ahmed, a leading fruit exporter of country said that Pakistan should continue to invest in research and development to overcome pre- and post- harvest challenges in the country.
Leading fruit exporters said that the adoption of new technologies such as treatment plants has enabled Pakistan to increase the shelf life of mangoes to 35 days. Since the exporters have increased shelf life of mangoes, they can now export the fruit through sea routes with extremely low freight rates compared to air routes.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 10th, 2012.
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For everyone's information, mangos treated with hot water only were mainly exported to Iran. With economic and trade sanctions on Iran, Pakistan is no longer exporting mangos to Iran that used to be our largest importer of Mangos.
European and Middle East countries require further extensive processing which is more expensive and these countries also import less Mango from Pakistan.
Only if we were still exporting Mango to Iran would this be a good news.
Such production facilities can help boost exports, and in-turn production. So no doubt its a great step. The real question is whether public/tax-payers money should be used to set up such facilities which will only benefit a handful of ministers and feudal lords. They enjoy heavy subsidies on inputs, get to sell their output at or above intl prices and yet enjoy tax free income! Why should the rest of the nation then pay taxes to make them richer?
@Rana sb. Dear brother, to sell it in a local market, fruit from all over Pakistan wont go to Khi first and then come back it will already increase its rate. Therefore local market wont get affected. And if the exports will improve then the production would also follow.
@Rana Umar: It would still be good to export via sea routes(cheap as compared to air routes) to new markets & get some revenue rather then selling at low profit margin.
Well there is so much to debate on this, whether it is a good thing or it is just misleading. Mangoes export will eventually lead to shortage in the local market which will cause hike in mangoes prices and some evil money makers will stock it in warehouses to be sold in black market later. It's just another way of filling the pockets of politicians and satisfying the corruption desires.
this is awesome. our agrarian economy needs this kind of R&D.