Zubair Motiwala urges Mango exporters to adopt value addition skills to enhance export value of Pakistani mangoes. The 2nd Mango Festival and International Mango Conference was held yesterday, 24th June, 2023 at the beautiful venue of Karachi beach. The event was thronged with visitors from the diplomatic core, business community, especially the horticulture exporters, food industry, construction industry, textile and allied products. Prominent among the visitors were Consul Generals from Turkiye, Malaysia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Japan, Oman, Qatar, Iran and Thai Women Club, “Chief Guest on the occasion was Mr. M. Zubair Motiwala, a renowned industrialist and the Chief Executive of Trade Development Authority of Pakistan”.
M/s Muhammad Umar Shah, Chairman, Diplomatic Business Club; Ali Vazir, Secretary General; and Hasnain Pardesi, CEO of HMR Waterfront personally welcomed the guests.
The event was supported by the ‘Islamic Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture’; ‘All Pakistan Fruits & Vegetables Exporters, Importers & Merchants Association’; ‘Pakistan Agriculture & Horticulture Forum’; ‘Agri-Tourism Development Corp of Pakistan’; and ‘HMR Waterfront’.
In his speech Mr M. Zubair Motiwala thanked the Diplomatic Business Club for regularly organizing such business networking events beneficial to enhance exports from Pakistan and to share the knowledge of value addition in the local produce. He urged the Mango processors and exporters to add value by producing and exporting mango pulp, mango juices, dried mango and other products from Mango, Guava and Tomato to be able to earn high value for Pakistani exports, as well as increase the shelf life of these perishable items. He invited the Diplomatic Business Club to join hands with TDAP to organize such shows in the Gulf for promoting Pakistani exports.
Mr Motiwala also remarked on the views of the previous speaker of the Conference Mr Luca Trombella, who spoke online from the Netherlands to contact him for organizing B2B and B2C shows to explore the vibrant European markets for Pakistani products.
Earlier *Mr. Luca Trombella, an international Food Safety and Logistics expert* spoke on the Challenges and Opportunities for Pakistani Mangoes in the European market. He surprised the audience that without having local production, Netherlands is world’s 3rd biggest Mango exporter. It actually imports from several countries, mainly Brazil and Peru and re-exports to France, Germany, Belgium and other European countries to earn handsome foreign exchange.
Mr Ali Vazir, Secretary General, Diplomatic Business Club in his opening remarks shared the information about leading Mango exporters of the world topped by Thailand, followed by Mexico and the Netherlands. Pakistan, however, remains the 7th biggest Mango exporter of the world. While the world’s leading importers are China, USA and Netherlands. He also took the opportunity of introducing the activities of the Diplomatic Club that organized 22 events for the business community in the last 1 year where foreign diplomats from several countries graced the event. Such activities are helpful in developing networking and generating new business leads.
Other speakers included M/s Hasnain Pardesi, CEO of HMR Waterfront; Shaikh Imtiaz Hussain, President, Pakistan Agriculture & Horticulture Forum; Khalid Ejaz, CEO, Roshan Enterprises; and Syed Saad Ali Pasha, Business Development Manager, Islamic Chamber of Commerce, Industry & Agriculture.
Showbiz personalities like M/s Ayub Khoso, Shaafat Ali and Danish Khan also were attracted to the festival due to the love of Mangoes. The participants were served dozens of desserts made from Mangoes. A big expo of different varieties of Pakistani mangoes and valued added products were displayed by M/s Imtiaz Enterprises; Roshan Enterprises; Sindh Agriculture Research Deptt, Mirpurkhas; Pamico Technologies, Faisalabad and Chato Foods. The event culminated at buffet dinner. Before leaving, all the participants were provided with free boxes of export quality mangoes.