Daily Times

Pakistan’s export of goods and services to China witnessed an increase of 39.44% during the first five months of the current fiscal year (2023-24) as compared with the exports of the corresponding period of last year.

While commenting on the cause of this enormous increase, Omer Malik, chairman of King’s Bridge Investments, told China Economic Net (CEN) that there were a number of reasons, but one of them was that there had been a lot of marketing and trade activities between the two countries after the lockdown eased. “For example, the five-day China International Fair for Trade in Services (CITFIS) has provided a stage for Pakistani companies to showcase their products and services along with Pakistan’s top leaders.

After that, within Pakistan, the 2023 International Textile Exhibition (TEXPO) was followed by the Food and Agri Expo and most recently there was a healthcare and engineering conference held in Lahore, etc.

At those events, we were given the opportunity to showcase our productivity, quality and resources. So I think that this was a combination, in which Pakistan highlighted its potential.” Omer Malik explained. CEN found from Chinese Customs statistics that the top import item from Pakistan in terms of quantity and value was sesame seeds.

More than 134 million kilogrammes of sesame seeds worth 235.36 million US dollars were exported to China from July to November 2023, an increase of 480 percent compared with exports in the corresponding period last year. Undoubtedly, this will be one of the major highlights since the start of the second phase of CPEC.

Dr. Amjad Magsi, Professor, University of Punjab believes that both Pakistan and China understand each other’s potential and know each other’s strengths.

“Pakistan is the fifth largest producer of sesame seeds, and then when China gave methods and approached it, we achieved very good statistics. Pakistan has a very good capacity in the field of agriculture and in producing seeds,” he added. Omer Malik noticed that Chinese companies have brought technologies and seeds that were genetically engineered to Pakistan.

“They continue to adapt their techniques to our native land, and we have seen the successful production of sesame seeds. They are not only producing it, we are also seeing high yields,” he said. He believes that if Chinese technology is used in the right way, the advantages of sesame seeds will increase, just like other products using Chinese technology.