PMEX partners with GROWTECH

KARACHI: Pakistan Mercantile Exchange (PMEX), country’s only multi-commodity futures exchange, has entered into a strategic partnership with GROWTECH Services, a leading agriculture technology company operating in Pakistan, to facilitate farmers meet agricultural challenges, a statement said on Wednesday.

Under the partnership, GROWTECH Services will provide technological solutions to PMEX and its partners to better meet the agricultural challenges faced by farmers. PMEX will provide training to the farmers in using electronic warehouse receipt (EWR) trading platform.

Both parties will further develop agri-commerce trading platforms collaboration and work together for development of futures products in agriculture commodities.

The agreement was signed by Ejaz Ali Shah, managing director of PMEX and Shahnawaz Mahmood, co-founder of GROWTECH Services.

Commenting on the partnership, Ejaz Ali Shah said, “We are delighted to enter into this strategic partnership. Our relationship with GROWTECH signals our commitment to creating a vibrant, unified national market for indigenous agricultural commodities for ushering in economic growth and poverty alleviation.”

He added that through the partnership, they look forward to working on the propagation of EWR to help farmers achieve greater financial inclusion, avoid distress selling, improve income per acre and facilitate the government in achieving trading documentation of agriculture commodities.

Sahnawaz Mahmood said their focus was on enhancing productivity and decreasing input cost for farmers to improve per acre productivity through robust and comprehensive tech advisory and hand-holding of farmers throughout the crop cycle.

“We have developed a virtual marketplace connecting different stakeholders on the same platform with the option of group buying/selling.”

He stated that the collaboration would work on EWR and futures products of agriculture commodities for better price discovery and training of farmers which would improve their livelihood. The development of digital marketplaces was an important step going forward, he said.