Airfreight costs and a lack of adequate airport storage facilities are curtailing Pakistan mango exports, according to media reports.
Ahmad Jawad, chief executive of Pakistani exporter Harvest Tradings, told the Business Recorder that while domestic mango production was likely to climb to 1.5m tonnes this season, the constraints meant exports may not exceed 150,000 tonnes.
“It is required that the country should be exporting double the target quantity, at least 25 percent of the total production, but the prevailing infrastructure is highly insufficient,” Jawad said.
According to Jawad, it is common for airlines to significantly raise freight costs after the beginning of the Pakistani mango season.
He also suggested the country’s two major airports, Karachi and Lahore, were not equipped to store mango exports, with flight delays often affecting the quality of shipments.
Jawad said delays of more than 12 hours can cause a whole shipment to go stale.
As a precaution, exporters are not sending fully ripe fruit, driving down market prices.
