Pakistan’s agricultural products export to China to further grow: Commercial Counsellor

BEIJING, Oct 02 (APP): Pakistan has rich potential of the export of agricultural products to China and the present government is taking concrete measures to take advantage of huge demand of fruits and vegetable in the Chinese markets, said Commercial Counsellor, Pakistan Embassy Beijing, Ghulam Qadir.

“I think, the increase in the agricultural products exported to China this year is still tip of iceberg. The potential is much more and we are working hard to further enhance our exports to China,” he told APP on Sunday.

According to the data from China Customs, Pakistan’s agricultural products exported to China from Jan to Aug 2022 reached US$730 million with a year-on-year increase of 28.59 percent. Pakistan’s agricultural exports to China are expected to exceed a record high of US$ 1 billion in 2022.

He informed that both Pakistani and the Chinese authorities were satisfied over the increase but they expressed a need to improve the trade balance between the two countries.

“So, we are working hard with the Chinese authorities for making more cooperation and we’re expecting some good news about exports of different products, he added.

Ghulam Qadir hoped that more export could also start and having US$1 billion worth of agricultural products’ exports to China was still not enough as compared to the overall potential of the Chinese market. He said that more efforts were needed to enhance exports and he vowed to continue to work with the relevant authorities in this regard.

The Commercial Counsellor said that at present, agricultural products including fruits, vegetable, sesame seed, pine nuts and seafoods were being exported to China. These are overall products, but we need to increase that basket and we are working on it, he added.

As per official data, Pakistan’s trade surplus with China in agricultural products also reached US$ 527 million with a year-on-year increase of 48.38 percent in the same period. The trade surplus of agricultural products for the whole year of 2021 was US$ 640 million with an increase of 13 times.