PESHAWAR: Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (Smeda) will establish a fruit dehydration unit in Swat to facilitate local farmers and businessmen.

This was disclosed by Smeda’s general manager outreach Javed Iqbal Khattak while talking to mediapersons here on Wednesday.

He said against the world’s dried fruit demand of about 0.95 million tons, the supply from Pakistan was only 8,000 tons with an estimated foreign exchange of about $50 million.

The dried fruit’s global market of $2.5 billion is offering enough for Pakistan’s increased market share provided the adoption of modern technology.

He said of the total production of 71,265 tons of apple, apricot, peach, pear and persimmon in Swat, around 28,000 tons were wasted. He said currently only a handful of growers were sun drying the persimmon, but due to the reliance upon weather dependent manual techniques the quantity and quality remained far below the actual potential.

Keeping in view these facts, he said the authority had proposed the establishment of a fruit dehydration unit with an installed capacity of 175 tons of fruit and vegetable per year along with a washing, slicing, packing, and storing facility.

The project costing Rs59 million will facilitate fruit growers for value addition, besides providing employment to people in transportation, raw material supply, distribution and sale of dehydrated fruits, explained Mr Khattak.

Published in Dawn, June 22nd, 2017