UNIDO,GB join hands to promote agro-industry

ISLAMABAD, May 10 (APP):United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and Gilgit Baltistan (GB) government Thursday agreed to
work together for promotion of agro-industry through public-private partnership.
“The UNIDO will provide financial and technical assistance for piloting cherry, apple and trout value chain development”,
said a press release here.
The organization and Agriculture Department of Gilgit and Baltistan convened its maiden Steering Committee meeting for Pakistan’s agribusiness and agro-industry development project. The meeting was followed by the validation workshop which held here under the chairmanship of Secretary P&D Department of Gilgit-Baltistan Babar Aman Babar.
The main objective of the deliberation was to finalize the agricultural value chain that needed to be addressed in the project
and look into its PC-1 to acquire government resources.
Addressing the Steering Committee, the secretary said that climate and abundant water resources make Gilgit-Baltistan
ideally suitable region for fruit crops like cherry and apple as well as trout fish. However, he said the farmers and traders were
unable to harness the best value of these crops due to lack of innovative ideas and technology including pre and post harvesting, processing and packaging.
The UNIDO’s this initiative would help overcome the hurdles faced by the farmers through Agribusiness and agro-industry development assistance in Pakistan (PAAID) – Initiative for Gilgit-Baltistan , he added.
The UNIDO outlined the principles to be considered for formulating the project and briefed the house, about how it
developed the concept of the project and subsequent flow of information through various departments of Gilgit-Baltistan for this project to delineate the state of the art situation in each of these commodities.
The UNIDO conducted a baseline and feasibility study of Cherry, Apple and Trout Fish.
The purpose of the event was to present the preliminary findings of the value chain assessments and feasibilities studies
of selected sectors involving trout, apple and cherry.
The organization also presented its agro-food value chain approach and potential intervention scope for the selected value chains. The GB government encouraged the development partners in the area to join forces keeping in view needs of local
farmers.
As an outcome of this event, the Steering Committee members have agreed on the intervention approach for this initiative
as well as the timeline to finalize the Trust Fund Agreement and governmental approval between the two parties.
Nadia Aftab, Country Representative of UNIDO in Pakistan referring to the background of the project commended the
provision of seed money from UNIDO and funds from One UN for initiating the project activities.
She thanked the GB government for continuous support and their vigour for developing the selected fruit and fisheries sector.
She praised the keen interest shown by the progressive farmers, women associations and women farmers and small fruit businessmen of Gilgit-Baltistan in the project.
Among others,the event was attended by representatives of the Department of Agriculture and the Planning and
Development Department of Gilgit-Baltistan as well as the representatives of International Labour Organization, International
Fund for Agricultural Development, Agha Khan Foundation and the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) besides
other federal agencies.