"Think Tank" meeting held at PAMCO - 22.01.2008

Participants:

Mr. Saad Ahsan-ud-Din           Minister Forestry, Wild Life & Fisheries, Punjab

Mr. Salman Siddique                Chief Secretary, Government of Punjab

Dr. Zafar Altaf                          Chairman, PAMCO

Syed Yawar Ali                         Director, PAMCO

Mr. Mansoor Arifeen                 C.E.O, PAMCO

Mr. Shahid Mehmood              Secretary, P&D, Government of Punjab

Mr. Shariq Mahmood               Company Secretary, PAMCO

Mr. Waheed Ahmed Bhutta      Senior Chief(Agri/RP)

Mr. Parvez Hamid                     Manager PAMCO

The meeting took place in PAMCO’s office. The meeting was held to discuss PAMCO’s role in light of rising prices of agriculture commodities throughout the world.

Syed Yawar Ali initiated the discussion by giving the participants a background of the situation. He said that to induce private sector investment in agriculture, we need to identify three or four agricultural commodities which have the highest potential for value addition and focus on related projects which are commercially viable i.e. have a payback of less than five years.

Mr. Parvez Hamid gave the meeting a presentation on the ‘Agflation’ phenomenon. The presentation covered the trend of rising food prices with examples from all over the world, identified the causes and presented some recommendations for consideration by the meeting.

In the discussion after the presentation, it was proposed by Syed Yawar Ali that PAMCO should prepare detailed studies to induce private sector investment in focused areas. He explained that ground work in this regard has already been done during the previous meetings and it is recommended that studies be prepared for Maize [major crop], Potato [Vegetable] and Citrus [Fruit]. The studies will be followed by small investor-focused workshops where potential investors will be able to network with experts/technologists from the industry, bankers, senior government officers, etc. The proposal was appreciated and concurred with by all present. Mr. Shahid Mehmood suggested that the possibility of holding these workshops in collaboration with Commerce & Investment Department, Punjab be considered. This suggestion was also appreciated by the meeting.

Mr. Mansoor Arifeen advised that if Pakistan wants to cash in on international increase in prices of agriculture commodities, it will have to increase yields to have exportable surpluses available. In PAMCO’s opinion, one measure to achieve this is to subsidize the producer [farmer] rather than the consumer. If a farmer gets better price for his output, it will give him an incentive to improve his yields. 

Dr Zafar Altaf proposed that the Government of Punjab set up a School of Poly-Agro Technologies and a School for AgriBusiness Entrepreneurs. The proposal was endorsed by the Chief Secretary.