Pakistan date manufacturers eye Sri Lanka

Shirajiv Sirimane

Pakistan date manufacturers are looking at setting up a date processing plant in Sri Lanka said the Pakistan Chamber of Agriculture Vice President and Pakistan Date Manufactures Association delegation head.

He said their main objective is value addition and re-export and also providing their product range to the Sri Lankan market.

He said the Sri Lankan date market is being dominated by Arab countries and they now want to launch an aggressive campaign in Sri Lanka. “Pakistan is a ‘late comer’ to the Sri Lankan market and now we want to lead an aggressive marketing campaign first to be the market leader in Sri Lanka and then look at setting up a processing plant.”

The Chamber also hopes to conduct a date exhibition in both Colombo and Kandy in a bid to create more awareness for their products and also to woo more direct buyers from Sri Lanka. Pakistan has over 300 varieties of dates and also offers many by-products.”

Dates are an important fruit of Pakistan and history shows that dates were grown since 5,000 years ago and is the third most extensively grown fruit after mango and citrus.

Pakistan is situated in an agro-ecological region where superior quality dates are grown on a large scale. Pakistan is ranked as the second largest exporter and the fourth largest producer of dates in the world. This fruit is grown on more than 80,000 hectares with production at more than 6.5 million metric tons annually.

Pakistan is exporting dates to more than 30 countries around the world such as the USA, China, India, the UK and Germany etc and holds an important position in the world’s date trade. Pakistan’s dates enjoy top position in terms of quality in the market in several countries including the USA, China, Nepal, India, Canada and Denmark.

The annual quantity of dates exported per year is about 90,000 metric tons. The products Pakistan export are soft dates, dry dates, half ripened dates as daug or rutab, black dates and dates with almond and cashew nuts. Presently Pakistan is holding 11% share of the world date production. He said that the delegation also met with leading super market chains and leading importers in Pettah and their discussions were very productive.

He said that Pakistan dates are of better quality and most importantly would be cheaper. “Since Sri Lanka is a price sensitive market the ‘price’ factor would be a key for our products,” he said.

He also said that their shelf life too is very high and this would be another plus point for them.

Pakistan is the second largest trading partner of Sri Lanka within the South Asian region. The level of bilateral trade between Pakistan and Sri Lanka increased as a result of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA).

The products imported from and exported to Sri Lanka such as fish, meat, vegetable, foliage plants, sugar, biscuits, pastries, cakes, mineral products, fiber boards, leather and leather-based products, footwear, gems, jewellery, value-added copper products, electrical items, bicycles, boats, and floating structures.

There is a great demand for Pakistani produces such as cotton yarn, fabrics, potatoes, pharmaceutical products, knitted or crocheted fabrics, articles of iron and steel, galvanized pipes, rice, fish, seafood, textile articles, articles of apparel and clothing accessories, rods of refined copper etc. Sri Lanka is the first country to sign a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Pakistan.