A three-day food and agri event attended by more than 800 buyers from 75 countries ended in Karachi with 330 exporters exhibiting around 500 quality products.
Dawn reported that international chain stores, buyers and multinational companies visited the Second International Food and Agriculture Exhibition at the Karachi Expo Centre. The largest participation was from China, comprising 150-plus buyers.
As result of 7,000 business-to-business meetings, deals worth $1.2bn were finalised, besides signing of more than 36 Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) mainly in rice, processed food, seafood, kinnow, potato, lentils, chickpeas, mangoes, confectionery, meat, food and beverages, spices, cereals and oil seeds by China, Malaysia, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Russia, Sri Lanka, Gambia and France.
Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP) Chief Executive Zubair Motiwalla said the estimated export orders of $1.2bn will complement the target set by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in his inaugural speech at the event.
According to a press release issued by the Ministry of Commerce, $35 million worth of export contracts were signed between Pakistani and Chinese companies in the seafood sector. Additionally, several MoUs and investment interests were expressed by various companies, including HVA (dairy investment), Bolynta (potato seeds from the Netherlands), Huiyuan Beverages and Food Group (China), and METAS (Qatar).