KARACHI, Dec 12: The imposition of 45 per cent import duty on Pakistani kinno by the Iranian authorities has been hampering exports of the citrus.

A delegation of All-Pakistan Fruits and Vegetable Exporters and Importers Association left for Tehran on Friday to discuss the issue with the Iranian authorities to persuade them to bring down the duty to the last year’s level of four per cent.

Pakistan exported 40,000 tons of kinno to Iran last year and has fixed a target of 60,000 tons for this year.

The delegation will hold talks with Iranian importers of fruits under the auspices of Iranian Chamber of Commerce.

The meetings have been arranged by the Pakistani Consulate in Tehran.

Talking to Dawn, leader of the delegation Abdul Wahid said that he was confident that they would succeed in persuading Iranians to lower the duty, which would help exporters meet this year’s target.

Pakistan exported a total of 175,000 tons of kinno last year while target for this year is 225,000 tons.

He, however, said that in view of the recession in Middle East, Far East, Europe, Russia – traditional markets the kinno export target would be difficult to achieve.

Mr Wahid disclosed that exports to new markets had suffered due to the Blemishes issue which is caused due to attack of fruit fly on the nascent kinno plants. The attack leaves round marks on kinno, which are not accepted by many advanced countries, such as Japan.

He said that the Horticulture Development Board had submitted a project to the Export Development Marketing Fund to wipe out the disease, but funding was still awaited for implementation of the project.

Khalid Ijaz, a leading kinno exporter, said that at present export shipments were 50 per cent down compared to same period last year.

He said that kinno export to China under the Free Trade Agreement could not start as Pakistan faced a tough competition from the Chinese citrus.

He said that kinno crop this year was 20 per cent less than the last year’s due to the adverse climatic conditions.