Pakistan becomes third largest exporter of dates

Pakistan has become the third largest country in the world that is exporting dates to the rest of the world and with proper attention and appropriate interventions this sector can flourish manifold. The date sector offers substantial opportunities for export, income and employment generation in addition to economic growth of the country, said an official of Ministry of Commerce and Textile while talking to APP here on Friday.
The annual production of dates in Pakistan is estimated at around 535,000 tonnes of which only 86,000 tonnes are exported and the rest are either consumed locally or perish, he informed.

Chief Executive Officer Harvest Trading Ahmad Jawad told media that Pakistani dates exports could be raised to $200 million from the current $28 million with proper processing and packaging. Since 1999, per acre yield of dates in Pakistan did not increase much, whereas world-wide production increased by 166 percent, he added.
Highlighting the problems, the CEO said the country lacked storage facilities and so exported some quantity of dates while the rest perish. Thus due to these problems the country had to import dates during the month of Ramzan. “Importers of dates such as Germany, Denmark, India, Nepal, USA, UK, Afghanistan and Canada are re-exporting Pakistani dates after quality enhancement and preparation of by-products, at a price that is four to six times higher than their import price,” said Jawad.
“Of the 300 varieties of dates produced in Pakistan, Begam Jangi of Balochistan, Aseel of Sindh and Dhakki of Dera Ismail Khan are the varieties which are sought after the world over due to their exotic taste,” said Jawad. He further said that dates could fetch many more millions of dollars if focus was given to value addition such as the use of dates in preparing date sweets, jams, chocolates and other products.
Even the damaged crop is used for medical purposes and date oil is fit for use in cosmetics. He maintained that the usage of dates increases during the winter season thus its price and demand surge. Another report by the USAID revealed that lack of awareness about the best farming practices, improper fruit handling techniques, and an absence of developed processing facilities are major constraints inhibiting profitable date production in Pakistan. Ghulam Farid, a date farm owner stated that usually the harvest season of dates starts in July in upper Sindh during the monsoon season; they remain safe due to lack of rain in these areas during harvesting.

^{Source: Business Recorder}

Read More

ICTA fails to control high prices

Owing to the price differential between wholesale and retail markets, essential food items were sold at higher prices in the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad last week as compared to the preceding week, reveals a survey conducted by Business Recorder on Saturday.
The survey noted that the Islamabad Capital Territory Administration (ICTA) and District Administration Rawalpindi have failed in establishing an affective price monitoring mechanism to control prices due to which essential food items were not being sold on uniform rates in the different markets of the twin cities. It was observed that food items, which were available in wholesale markets, were being sold on 10 to 15 percent higher rates in the retail markets. Almost all perishable food items, including vegetables and fruits were being sold on higher rate in different markets of the twin cities, while actual rate of the food items in vegetable markets were very low.
When asked about reasons behind the price differential, traders in different markets of the twin cities stated that they have to pay transport, utilities charges and rent of their shops. In case of perishable food items mixed trend was noted as prices of majority of the vegetables remain unchanged, while some vegetables registered slight increase in their prices during the week under review. Tomato was being sold at Rs 40 per kg, while it was being sold at Rs 55-60 in retail market, onion was being available at Rs 40-45 per kg in wholesale market, while it was being sold at Rs 50 per kg in retail market, potato was being available at Rs 30-35 in wholesale market, while it was being sold at Rs 40 in retail market. Similarly, 10-15 percent price differential was witnessed in other vegetables, including peas which were being available at Rs 60-65 per kg in wholesale market, while they were being sold at Rs 75-80 per kg in retail market, green chili at Rs 70 in retail market, cucumber at Rs 90-100 per kg, carrot at Rs 30 per kg, radish at Rs 30 per kg, ginger at Rs 250-280 and garlic was being sold at Rs 140-180 per kg last week as compared to the preceding week.
However, prices of different kinds of fruits almost remained stable last week as compared to the preceding week as banana was being sold at Rs 60-80 per dozen, apple at Rs 100-180 per dozen, fruiter at Rs 60- 70 per dozen, malta at Rs 80-100 per dozen and guava was being sold at Rs 70-80 per kg last week as compared to the preceding week.
While prices of non-perishable food items were also not uniform in the different retail markets of the twin cities as sugar was being sold from Rs 54 to Rs 60 per kg, moong washed was being sold at Rs 150-160 per kg, masoor washed was available at Rs 130-140 per kg, mash washed at Rs 140-160 per kg, chicken at Rs 160-175 per kg, eggs at Rs 100 per dozen and rice basmati broken was being sold at Rs 80-90 per kg last week as compared to the preceding week. The survey noted that mutton was being sold at Rs 600-620 per kg, while beef was being sold at Rs 280-300 per kg last week as compared to the preceding week.

^{Source: Business Recorder}

Read More

How sell-off of PSM can be forestalled

Muhammad Zubair, minister of state for privatisation, said privatisation of Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) can only be averted if PSM turns into profitable organisation. He was speaking at an interactive session on "Privatisation Policy and Priorities" organised by Pakistan- Korea Business and Friendship Council along with seven other business councils at a hotel here on Saturday.
He said that around 2500 employees in PSM were middle and inter pass and urged the participants to come forward and turn PSM around, if they want to stop its privatisation. He said that privatisation policy was aimed at avoiding heavy spending in public enterprises, adding that government was paying around Rs 500 billion per annum to run loss earning public organisations.
Zubair further said that if this amount was poured in health, education and other sectors, it would create a difference and added that people of Pakistan, who were entitled to get better services, were being burdened because of these loss earning public entities. He said that Nawaz government was committed to its privatisation policy and they had no IMF pressure in this regard. He said: "IMF has set milestones for its programme and government is striving to achieve it but it doesn''t mean that we are taking dictations from IMF".
In his welcome address, Ahsan Mukhtar Zubairi, chairman Pakistan Korea- Business and Friendship Council said that state owned enterprises (SOEs) were inefficient and generally slow in responding to public demands. On the other hand, private sector is driven by profit motive and it becomes ruthless in the pursuit of personal gain and profit. A proper balance needs to be struck between public interest and profit, he urged.
He said that Pakistan had experimented with privatisation during the last three decades. Over a 100 state owned enterprises have been sold to the private sector during the last 30 years. Many of these do not exist any more. Mostly expensive real estates have been sold at exorbitant profits and the state and the public have been deprived. Many SOEs have been sold at throw away prices. The case of HBL, UBL, ABL and PTCL can not be forgotten. The Privatisation Commission (PC) had followed all procedures well but government was deprived of its valuable assets, he said. Some privatisation''s have also gone well such as MCB and only a few others.

^{Source: Business Recorder}

Read More