From Our
Correspondent
BEIJING: “The agricultural cooperation under China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has three main goals. First, to help Pakistan improve agricultural research sustainability. Second, according to a report to promote the development of Pakistan’s export-oriented economy.
Third, to introduce more advanced agricultural production factors into Pakistan,” said Dr. Gu Wenliang, Agricultural Commissioner at the Chinese Embassy in Pakistan, on what is happening in the agricultural sector under CPEC to further boost China-Pakistan cooperation in a webinar themed by “COVID-19 and Higher Education:
Addressing about food Security through Policy Support and Research”, he said “Pakistan’s economy is basically export-oriented and the majority of the exports are agricultural products. We’d like to promote value-added processing to help more Pakistani products up to the international standards, entering more markets globally.
Now, rice, mango, citrus, dry nuts, honey and seafood, etc. from Pakistan are being exported to China. Besides, it’s learned from Dr. Gu in the webinar that next year Pakistani onion has the chance to enter the Chinese market as the two governments are dedicated to signing more protocols to let more Pakistani products like cherry, potato, etc. be exported to China.
“I always think that Pakistan’s meat products have the greatest potential to be exported to the Chinese market because China is importing numerous meat products from all over the world, and the livestock sector in Pakistan is producing a lot of meat products,” Dr. Gu said. However, due to the food and mouth disease, Pakistan’s meat products currently haven’t got permission to be exported to China. “We’re trying to build free zones to encourage more Chinese enterprises to invest in building cold storage, cold logistics and food processing to let Pakistani products enter China,” Dr. Gu added.
According to Dr. Gu, the two governments are negotiating about an memorandum of understating (MOU) in animal disease control to help Pakistan improve the livestock sector as well as lift Pakistan’s export of meat products.
