‘Japan expected to have 50pc more Pakistanis mangoes’

TOKYO: Japan is expected to receive 40 to 50 percent more Pakistani mangoes this year as the country has emerged successful in mango diplomacy, a foreign envoy said.

Ambassador of Pakistan to Japan Imtiaz Ahmed told The News that mangoes import from Pakistan was a challenge this year due to the coronavirus epidemic. “However, we have been able to import them this year as well. Last year we worked hard and this year we intended to increase imports,” Ahmed said. “This year one of the major challenges was the availability of cargoes for imports, while another challenge was inspection.”

The envoy said Japanese ministry of agriculture dispatches an inspection team every year to Pakistan. “However, this year the team could not go to Pakistan because of the epidemic,” he said. “So, we negotiated with the Japanese government on this issue and got special permission that without Japanese inspector mangoes could be imported in Japan through an inspection from our Pakistani institution and luckily we succeeded.”

Ahmed said the importers arranged cargoes by another airline. Import of Pakistani mangoes has not been affected at all and “we are heading towards our target, and this year 40 to 50 percent more Pakistani mangoes will be imported to Japan”.

Japan received the first consignment of Pakistani mangoes earlier last month. The inspection impasse was feared to result in zero imports compared to 120 tons a year earlier. The country exported 130,000 tons of mangoes across the world last year.

On diversification of imports, Ahmed said they are working on different products. “We are also working on textiles and we will also increase its imports to Japan,” he said. “The scope of agriculture is very wide, take the example of mango so far only two varieties of mango are being imported: Sindhri and Chounsa and now we have requested to import five more varieties in Japan.” Pakistani envoy said the embassy is negotiating for the import of fruits like citrus, fresh and frozen vegetables from Pakistan and the rest of the products are also in high demand.

“We are trying to bring Pakistani surgical instruments and sports equipment to Japan. We are also striving for seafood products, which are in demand in Japan,” he said. “In addition, Pakistan has many non-traditional products that are also being worked on, such as shoes, for the first time in the history of Japan, we have imported shoes. We are trying our best to increase our exports to Japan and we are doing our best for that.”