January 10, 2006	Tuesday	Zilhaj 9, 1426

BEIJING, Jan 9: China has shown willingness to establish agro-based industrial units in Pakistan and develop cooperation in water management and fishery sectors.

“Three separate agreements to this effect will be signed soon,” this was decided during the formal official-level talks concluded here on Monday.

Pakistan’s side was represented at the talks by Secretary Food, Agriculture and Livestock Muhammad Ismail Qureshi while Vice Agriculture Minister Niu Dun led Chinese side.

The two sides exchanged draft agreements that suggest setting up industrial units in Pakistan to manufacture pesticides and farm machinery, develop an efficient irrigation system and strengthen interaction to expand cooperation in fishery sector.

They also established a joint working group to decide the details of the future cooperation in the agriculture and livestock sectors.

It was decided that two Chinese delegations would visit Pakistan in March and April to finalize some mutually agreed joint ventures, to be undertaken on public and private levels. “We have also agreed upon a mechanism of bilateral cooperation on a regular basis, that help to increase per acre yield of various crops and promote export of agro-based products,” said Ismail Qureshi in an interview with APP.

The talks held as follow-up of two MoUs signed in December 2004 and April 2005, respectively. A 15-member delegation, including Secretary Board of Investment Jahangir Bashar and representatives of the private sector and experts of relevant departments participated in the talks that covered wide-ranging subjects of common interest.

The delegation also had a separate meeting with Chinese Vice Minister of National Development and Reform Commission. The talks focused on setting up industrial units in Pakistan for food-processing, packaging and manufacturing of pesticides.

Qureshi termed the talks very fruitful and hoped that this would pave the way for broadening and intensifying the ongoing cooperation in the agriculture field. The Chinese side showed its willingness for transfer of technology to help Pakistan produce agriculture inputs indigenously. Pakistan, he said attached great importance to Chinese assistance for developing high-efficiency drip-irrigation system and manufacturing pesticides.

In irrigation sector, he further said the efficiency of water-delivery system in the country was about 40 per cent and it was hoped that by using the Chinese technology the efficiency would reach to 90 per cent.

About pesticide, he said Pakistan’s current annual import to this effect was amounted to about Rs10 billion and around 80 per cent of its import was from China. Now, he added they had proposed joint ventures to manufacture the same within the county to meet its growing demand and reduce the import cost.

Regarding bilateral trade in food products, the Secretary Agriculture said Pakistan made a major breakthrough in the recent year by starting export of rice and mango to China.

Necessary legal and procedural work had also been completed to introduce citrus fruit, especially kinno in the Chinese market from this year. He said that they were expecting from the private sector to seize the new trade opportunities, enhancing business activities between the two countries.—APP