Karachi : Mr. Irfan Iqbal Sheikh, President FPCCI, has called for enhanced cooperation between Pakistan and China on the occasion of Anhui – Pakistan International Agricultural Cooperation and Development Forum in China. Agricultural development and modernization of Pakistan should take prominence in CPEC as Pakistan is facing existential threats vis-à-vis food security for its 240 million populace, he added.
Mr. Irfan Iqbal Sheikh added that creation of modern transportation and logistics infrastructure to facilitate the efficient movement of agricultural products; along with technology transfer from China can improve crop yields; modernize irrigation methods and promote sustainable agricultural practices. Additionally, an expanded access to Chinese market for agricultural products through reduced trade barriers and streamlined regulations can facilitate Pakistan’s agricultural exports.
Mr. Muhammad Suleman Chawla maintained that FPCCI wants Pakistan to fully capitalize on the potential of agricultural development in Pakistan with the help of China and a blueprint needs to chalked out: (i) friendly policies and regulations for Pakistan should be sought from China that favor agricultural development and trade between our two brotherly and friendly countries (ii) facilitating the exchange of information, research and best practices in agriculture (iii) business networking for promoting partnerships and collaborations between businesses in China and Pakistan (iv) capacity building for organizing training programs and workshops to enhance the skills of our agricultural workforce to transformed them into skilled workforce for the modern practices in agriculture.
Elaborating upon the agricultural performance of Pakistan during FY22,Mr. Muhammad Suleman Chawla said that consequent to the floods in 2022, the Rabi Season crops have shown higher yield, which compensated the crop damages of the Kharif Season – leading to an overall growth of agriculture sector to 1.55 percent in FY22.
Mr. Chawla added that, in FY22, production growth of wheat (5.4 percent); sugarcane (2.8 percent) and maize (6.9 percent) partially compensated the negative growth of cotton (41.0 percent) and rice (21.5 percent). Furthermore, the normalization of livestock activities also led to the convergence towards the stabilization path.
Mr. Suleman Chawla highlighted that overall decline of important crops during FY22 is 3.20 percent. The year witnessed an increase of 0.23 percent in other crops; contributing 3.32 percent to GDP; primarily due to increase in oil seeds production by 53.15 percent. Additionally, cotton ginning having share of 0.97 percent in agriculture and 0.22 percent in GDP has declined by 23.01 percent due to decrease in cotton production.
However, it is well compensated by the increase in production of other crops. Livestock having share of 62.68 percent in agriculture and 14.36 percent in GDP, grew at 3.78 percent in FY22 compared to 2.25 percent as compared to FY21.
The forestry sector having share of 2.23 percent in agriculture value-addition and 0.51 percent in GDP, grew at 3.93 percent against 4.07 percent last year due to increase in timber production. Whereas, fishing sector having share of 1.39 percent in agriculture value-addition and 0.32 percent in GDP, grew at 1.44 percent in FY22 compared to 0.35 percent during FY21.
