Islamabad, 3 March 2023 (GNP): A symposium on agriculture investment was conducted in Islamabad to bring together key players, including financiers, policymakers, farmers, development partners, and researchers, in order to share ideas, information, and experiences in order to promote investment in the agricultural sector. The conference, which attracted over 300 attendees, offered a venue for networking and examining the potential for individual investors and financial institutions to make investments in the agricultural industry.
Booths for business-to-business meetings were put up, giving investors a way to get in touch with agricultural enterprises and share expertise and access to choices for innovations and bankable products. At the B2B meetings, a number of memorandums of understanding were either committed to or signed.
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International Finance Corporation (IFC), Asian Development Bank (ADB), and the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) jointly organized the conference, organized by the Federal and Provincial Boards of Investment (BOI), stimulated investments, alliances, and partnerships for the sector’s sustainable and inclusive growth, utilizing digitization while mitigating the negative effects of climate change.
Federal Minister for Planning and Commission Professor Ahsan Iqbal urged financial institutions, private investors, and government agencies to cooperate and work together in the agriculture sector, which has a significant potential for economic gains and poverty reduction. He thanked FAO for its efforts and emphasized that cluster-based development was a key component of the government’s Vision 2025 to maximize agriculture. This approach, which was influenced by Michael Porter’s seminal book “The Competitive Advantage of Nations,” was dubbed the key to our future.
The FAO’s Investment Centre additionally collaborates with partners in the business sector via financial institutions and Mohamed Manssouri, director of the FAO Investment Centre, called for greater ethical private agri-food investment. In order to increase investment and have a bigger impact at the national level, it serves as a link between members and finance partners.
To entice private investors, the investment potential and economic advantages of eight agricultural commodities—including apple, beef, chile, date, mango, onion, rice, and tomato—were highlighted. Furthermore, highlighted were the finance requirements for the sustainability of irrigated agriculture recognized under the Living Indus Initiative. This country’s strategy aligns very well with the FAO’s Hand in Hand (HIH) Strategy, which encourages the transformation of agri-food systems to eradicate poverty (SDG1), end hunger and malnutrition (SDG2), and lessen inequality (SDG10).
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Additional speakers during the opening session included Florence Rolle, an FAO representative, and Khalid Gardezi, The Ministry of National Food Security & Research’s Additional Secretary, the challenges faced by the agriculture sector were highlighted by Zeeshan Sheikh, Country Manager, IFC, Mohammad Farooq, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Climate Change, Yasmin Siddiqi, Director, ADB, and Aamer Irshad, Head of Program.
They also suggested various reforms, policy actions, and identified investment potential for the sustainable management of Pakistan’s agriculture sector under conditions of high climatic risk vulnerability.
ADB and IFC facilitated two interactive panel discussions on the symposium’s theme in which successful businesspeople discussed their experiences in attracting investment and utilizing digital technology to boost agricultural competitiveness.
In his concluding remarks, Jamil Qureshi, Executive Director General, Board of Investment (BOI), Government of Pakistan, outlined the future directions and brought the event to a close.
