October 28, 2003	Tuesday	Ramazan 1, 1424

KARACHI, Oct 27: Leading business houses of Saudi Arabia have agreed to import and invest in parboiled rice, fresh fruits and jewellery in a big way to make Pakistan a primary source of supply of these commodities.

This was stated by the Minister of State and Chairman Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) Tariq Ikram to Dawn on Monday, while giving details about the outcome of his recent visit to Saudi Arabia.

He said that a leading importer of parboiled rice has agreed to import around 30,000 to 40,000 tons from Pakistan and in order to meet this huge demand a consortium of leading exporters would be set up.

Tariq Ikram said that Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP) would be asked to invite applications by middle of next month for parboiled rice export and the EPB would vet these applications before being finalized.

Since the country is presently not producing sufficient quantity of parboiled rice and Saudi Arabia is one of the biggest importer of this rice the government has already allow import of plant and machinery from India needed for processing parboiled rice.

The EPB chief said that Saudi Arabia annually imports around 800,000 tons of rice but 60 per cent of this quantity was of parboiled rice. In order to build confidence the consortium of eight of nine leading exporters selected carefully would be given the task to meet the demanding of 30,000 to 40,000 tons of a leading private sector parboiled rice importer.

Similarly, he said during his visit he succeeded in persuading a leading importer of fresh fruits to import and invest in fruit processing and packaging industry. He said that this business house alone imports 60 per cent of fresh fruits.

Tariq Ikram said he visited the business house and met the owner Mr Sharbat Ali who expressed his desire to develop and own fruit orchards in Pakistan.

Another breakthrough, he said was in the field of jewellery where largest import of jewellery has shown keen interest in investing modern plant in Pakistan.

Tariq Ikram said that during this meeting with the Saudi party they raised the objection that in Pakistan jewellery manufacturing was still done by cottage industry whereas their demand was huge and could only be met through large scale production facility.

Upon this, he said he managed to convince them to invest in jewellery manufacturing plant having a capacity of one ton production per annum. Presently, EPB chief said Pakistan exports a meagre quantity of jewellery worth around 18 to 19 million dollars.