Staff Report LHR: In order to advance the cooperation in agriculture sector, a meeting was recently held between Turkish delegation and focal persons of Pakistan. The meeting was presided by Rashid Mehmood, Secretary Agriculture Punjab.
Gulzar Hussain Shah, Special Secretary Agriculture, Hussain Sardar, Additional Secretary (Planning), Dr. Abid Mehmood, Director General Agri. (Research), Dr. Anjum Ali, Director General Agri. (Extension), Ch. Muhammad Ashraf, Director General (Water Management), M. Rafiq Akhtar, Director Agri. Information and Rana Mehmood Akhtar, Chief Planning and Evaluation Cell attended the meeting.The representatives of Punjab Board of Investment and Trade (PBIT) also attended the meetingt.
Ahmet Duren, headed the Turkish delegation. The Turkish representative and experts of Agriculture Department, Punjab discussed in detail the possible areas of cooperation for investment and to boost agriculture sector in Pakistan through collaborative endeavors.
The outcome of discussion was the identification of five areas of cooperation and investment by theTurkishcompany which agreed to work for the promotion of drip irrigation system, quality/certifiedseeds, value addition of mango, guava, and potato,contactfarming through solar cum biogas integrated systemfor developing barren lands andhydroponicfarming.
Gulzar Hussain Shah, Special Secretary Agriculture, Punjab was nominated as focal person for these five areas/project and to proceed further from Agriculture Department, Punjab. It was agreed to hold next meeting in June 2015 to finalize modalitiesfor investment and to materialize projects in these five areas in agriculture sector in Punjab.