KARACHI: While China has shown interest in investing in Pakistan’s agriculture sector to meet its growing demand of agri products, Pakistan has ended up spending $1.37 billion on the imports of vegetables in the first half of the current fiscal year.

The State Bank on Friday issued updated details of imports which rose to $21.3bn in the first half FY18. Surprisingly, a major part of these imports are agriculture and dairy products — items which are easily available in the country. The imports of these products highlights the country’s lavish spending which could be easily avoided to save foreign exchange.

The six-month spending in the imports of vegetable products was 29 per cent higher than the corresponding period ($1.067bn) of the previous fiscal.

Under the head of vegetable products, Pakistan spent 424.7 million alone for the imports of edible vegetables during the first half of FY18, a 51 per cent increase compared to the same period in the previous fiscal year. Such a big amount of vegetables are being imported due to low trust on local produce which may carry huge doses of pesticides and other chemicals. However, some imported vegetables are not produced in the country at all.

Despite China’s interest in Pakistan’s vegetable produce, the country has been unable to exploit the potential of this opportunity and seems unprepared so far. Pakistan is considered a country rich in fruits but still it spent $74.9 million to import edible fruits and nuts during the first half of the ongoing fiscal. Last year imports under this head were worth $49m.

The country spent $64.6m for import of dairy products, eggs, honey and edible products while another $23.9m was spent on the import of live animals.

During the first six months of the current fiscal year, the country spent $312.5m on the import of coffee, tea, whiteners and spices — the second largest spending in the food and food products sector. For import of animal or vegetable fats, oils and cleavage products $908.9m was spent.

The country also spent $500.9m for import of oil seeds and ‘oleaginous fruit’. An oleaginous fruit is the part of a plant that is used to produce a vegetable oil. It can be a fruit (olives), seed (sesame) or nut (walnuts).

Published in Dawn, March 10th, 2018