Himalayan News Service

Kathmandu, May 22:

Asian Development Bank (ADB) will help promote the development of a competitive and sustainable agribusiness sector in Pakistan through a loan approved for $31 million, states a press release. The Agribusiness Development Project will establish market-based approaches to agribusiness development and enhance technical and managerial capacity in the subsector. It will also dismantle barriers to entry for new enterprises and promote the expansion of existing ones into new markets.The project will focus on horticulture and hortibusiness, though actions to improve the livestock and dairy institutional framework, and support for selected enterprises will be provided. Pakistan’s agriculture sector accounts for 25 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), almost half of jobs, and about 70 per cent of exports. However, the sector’s growth has been on the decline since 1990, and yields of major crops have stagnated in the past decade. Commercial agriculture and agribusiness development in the country is constrained by poor infrastructure, sector institutions and policies, and governance practices. Limited access to modern technology and to financial and business development services further hampers development.

Major components

•Creating an agribusiness support fund to provide farmers, farmer groups, and entrepreneurs

with demand-driven technical and managerial services,

•Increasing access to agribusiness finance,

•Providing capacity building for horticulture,

•Revising and updating the agribusiness regulatory framework and formulate a national policy,

•Project management support.