On behalf of the General Administration Customs China (GACC), the agricultural attaché of the Chinese embassy in Pakistan officially signed an agreement with the Pakistani Ministry of National Food Security and Research. The agreement concerns 'a protocol for quarantine and inspection regulations regarding Pakistani onion export to China. This is the first agreement Pakistan and China signed since the economic corridor between the two countries entered phase two. The protocol allows Pakistan to export onions to the Chinese market.
The Pakistani Minister of National Food Security and Research, Syed Fakhar Imam, explained that Pakistan is the sixth-largest onion exporter in the world. Pakistan has an annual onion export value of 243 million USD. The economic corridor between China and Pakistan already entered the second phase. One of the development points of the second phase is agricultural cooperation between the two countries. Pakistan hopes to further expand the agricultural cooperation between the two countries.
The agricultural attaché to the Chinese embassy in Pakistan stated that both governments jointly promoted the rapid development of agricultural trade between China and Pakistan. In the period between 2011 and 2019, the annual trade value between China and Pakistan increased from 490 million USD to 830 million USD. That is an increase of nearly 70%. And despite the outbreak of Covid-19, agricultural trade between the two countries continues to steadily develop. The trade value reached 770 million USD in 2020. And this year the trade value already reached 860 million USD in the first 9 months of the year. The export value of Pakistani products sold in the Chinese market reached 630 million USD, which is twice the export value of the same period last year. Pakistan exported roughly 37.4 tons of mangoes to China, which is more than 10 times the export volume of the same period in the previous year.
The Sino-Pakistani free trade agreement was signed on the first of January, 2020. 75% of the products traded between the two countries will enjoy a zero tariff. That is an opportunity for Pakistan to supply even more top-quality agricultural products to the Chinese market. The two countries aim to create an economic corridor between them. This project already reached a new level of high-quality development with a focus on industrial and agricultural cooperation. China aims to deepen cooperation with Pakistan to enrich the supply volume of top-quality agricultural products in the Chinese market.
Source: Economic News Daily