This year, for the first time ever, Pakistani cherries are poised to make their entrance into the Chinese market, marking an important step in the international expansion of Pakistan’s cherry industry.
“[The cherry in] our Pakistani market is too cheap…So if we have this opportunity to export our cherries to China, then we and the orchard owners, they can earn much more,” Doulart Karim, a Kashgar-based Pakistani logistics trader who has been prepared to bring Pakistani cherries eastward this year, told China Economic Net (CEN) in an interview. Karim told CEN reporter that the cherries to be exported will come from Gilgit-Baltistan, a major producer of cherries in Pakistan.
Karim noted, despite the presence of local cherry varieties in China, Pakistani cherries will still be able to carve out a niche in the Chinese market, particularly due to their organic nature. “Before, we have already tested it [the Pakistani cherry] in the laboratory in Islamabad, [and the results showed that] it is totally organic,” he said. The Pakistani exporter added that Pakistani cherries typically ripen between May and the end of July, when Chinese cherries tend to be out of market. “This is another advantage of Pakistani cherries,” said Karim. Karim revealed, the primary market for Pakistani cherries will be China’s Xinjiang, given the proximity and ease of access, adding they plan to gradually expand to other regions of China.
“We have devised a detailed marketing strategy to promote our cherries in Xinjiang,” he said, “However, we have yet to solve issues of logistics and cold storage.” Karim told CEN that he is working with local chambers of commerce to address these issues and streamline the process for exporting cherries. This year will serve as an experiment and trial period, allowing the cherry industry in Pakistan to fine-tune the process for large-scale exports to China, he said. “We have to do a lot of work on it,” the exporter said. “I hope in this year, we will prepare everything, and from next May, we will able to export properly to China.”