China a huge market for Pakistani mangoes: official

BEIJING: China is a huge market for Pakistani mangoes and both countries should make joint efforts to further promote Pakistani mangoes in Chinese markets, an official said.

There is still a great potential to be explored, which entails joint efforts from China and Pakistan for more Pakistani mangoes to enter the Chinese market, Cheng Xizhong, visiting professor at the Southwest University of Political Science and Law and senior Fellow of the Charhar Institute said in his article published by the China Economic Net.

Although, Pakistani mangoes are cheaper, compared with the mangoes in other countries but now the Chinese people pay more attention to quality than price; therefore, Pakistan should diversify its varieties and produce high-quality mangoes.

Cheng said more efforts are anticipated in mango packaging, preservation, deep processing and transportation. Three-dimensional transportation channels by land, sea, and air should be fully utilised for rapid delivery, he said.

Especially in terms of packaging, the maturity and appearance of each box is the key to boosting sales. At the same time, in major Chinese cities, large warehouse supermarkets should be established.

In March this year, China-Pakistan Trade Online (CPTO), a platform for Pak-China online trade, was launched. Now, as the Chinese people prefer online shopping, the Pakistani side should make full use of this platform for mango exports. To this end, Pakistan’s logistics industry needs to keep up.

As per the media reports, Pakistan has exported 37.4 tonnes of fresh and dried mangoes to China from January to September 2021, which represents an exciting 10-time increase than the same period last year.

At present, Pakistan’s mangoes account for only less than 0.36 per cent of China’s total mango imports. In some major Chinese cities, most mangoes are imported from Southeast Asian countries.

The Chinese people are expecting more delicious, high-quality fruits from the friendly neighbours.

With the improvement of people’s living standards and the pursuit of nutritional diversity, the consumption of the king of fruits is increasing year-by-year in China.

Chinese consumers bought 2,183,000 tonnes of mangoes in 2018 and 2,440,100 tonnes in 2019. In 2019, China imported 14,485 tonnes of fresh and dry mangoes, totaling $26.597 million.