Pakistan: Consignments via sea route to boost fresh vegetable export
Babar Durrani, the exporter said the use of technology helped exporting fast perishable Pakistani fresh vegetables via sea. “Freight charges of the export made through sea came nominal at Rs4-5 per kilogram against Rs100-120 per kilogram in airlift,” Durrani said.
He said the first batch of 24 tons fresh vegetables, including green chilli, bitter gourd and bottle gourd has been shipped out in a 40-feet container. Out of total 24 tons, around 12 tons vegetable were re-exported to Saudi Arabia from Dubai port.
The shipment from the Karachi port reached in six days at shelves of supermarkets in Dubai. Even after that, the vegetables were having an additional shelve life of around 14-15 days, which made possible re-exporting to Saudi Arabia, he added.
It was the first ever consignment sent through the sea route and is expected to reduce the retail prices of Pakistani fresh vegetable in Saudi Arabia and Dubai.
Durrani said keeping the vegetables and fruits fresh is the toughest challenge in exporting these kinds of produce through sea route because of their highly perishable nature.
“The use of hot water treatment technology helped killing possibly existing diseases in the vegetables, while the use of wax technology helped increasing shelf life of the perishable items by roughly 20 days,” he added.
Pakistani traders are traditionally exporting fresh vegetables to both the countries only through air cargoes as they lack technology, while export of such items via sea is apparently not viable without the treatment as they perished during the voyage.
Durrani said Pakistan has the potential to earn at least $27 million/week by exporting 2,000 tons of green vegetables to Saudi Arabia as the kingdom has banned green chilly from India. The size of Dubai market for Pakistan also stands equivalent to Saudi Arabian market.
Saudi authorities have banned Indian chilly in last February after reports of diseases. However, Indian traders are still exporting around 100 containers of green chillies and other fresh vegetables to Dubai every week.
Pakistan is exporting only 40-50 tons of fresh vegetables to Dubai through air cargos. “The use of the technologies may help Pakistan to increase its exports to the two countries,” Durrani said.
“At present, I am having a weekly order of four containers of fresh vegetables,” he said, hopping the exports via sea would increase gradually.
Source: thenews.com.pk