Danish experts arrive to identify openings for agri-business

Consultants will suggest steps to improve trade and cooperation.

ISLAMABAD: Denmark is looking to identify opportunities for cooperation between Pakistani and Danish businesses in the sectors of agriculture and dairy.

To this end, the Danish embassy has invited two agricultural consultants from Denmark for a week-long tour of the country, Danish Ambassador Jesper Moller Sorensen told The Express Tribune.

Sorensen said they would help suggest steps to establish bilateral business and research linkages.

Denmark is a global agricultural powerhouse. According to some estimates, its dairy industry exports two-thirds of the milk it produces after meeting the demand of its 5.6 million citizens.

Pakistan’s agri-businesses suffer from technological and value-addition weaknesses that need to be tackled to achieve the full potential.

The Danish delegation consists of Henry Jorgensen and Werner Kofoed Nielsen from the Knowledge Centre for Agriculture, a Danish company that provides professional knowledge about agriculture.

The experts would meet Pakistan’s agri-business community and visit research institutions in Islamabad, Faisalabad, Lahore and Karachi, said Aslam Perwaiz, the embassy’s commercial adviser.

The delegation kicked off its tour from Islamabad on Monday, with visits to agriculture research centres in the capital. Later, they interacted with the business community from twin cities at a dinner hosted by the Danish ambassador.

Nielsen, a dairy and agricultural consultant, said they would present a set of recommendations to the embassy. “The recommendations will most likely highlight areas of interest in agriculture in Pakistan and identify companies and institutions in Denmark that might be interested in working in those areas.”

Jorgensen, who has expertise in the business side of agriculture, said growth in agriculture should be market-driven. “Any changes made to facilitate growth should follow some sort of financial analysis which indicates that those changes will benefit the farmers.”

He also supported incentives for improving product quality. “I think the best way to develop the agricultural sector is to pay farmers something extra if they fulfil the requirements.”

Pakistani businessmen, who attended the reception, said the agricultural industry was full of potential, but they underlined the need for investments in agricultural infrastructure. They did, however, welcome technological and technical support from Danish firms to help enhance quality and efficiency of products and processes.

To focus more on trade and commercial affairs, Sorensen said the Danish embassy opened its first-ever commercial section in Pakistan in December 2013. “That move has led the embassy to reach out to businesses in Pakistan and Denmark.”

The real challenge, the Danish envoy admitted, was to convince companies to do business with Pakistan. Some companies from Denmark had shown interest in working in the areas of energy and energy efficiency, Sorensen added.

“We think that increasing our bilateral trust on the trade side and doing more commercial activities are very much linked with policy objectives we have with Pakistan, which are to create opportunities for every single citizen, create jobs and growth and ultimately reduce poverty.”

Published in The Express Tribune, April 9^th, 2014.

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