The suspension or delay of flights of the national carrier has caused millions of rupee in losses to local exporters as their perishable goods were stuck at Cargoes offices in Karachi and other airports of the country.
Business community in Karachi has demanded of the incumbent government to negotiate with the airline’s unions for restoring PIA’s flight operations throughout the country as they cannot bear losses of millions of rupees every day due to delay in sending perishable goods to Arab, European and American markets.
The businessmen said that if the issue was not urgently resolved, the foreign customers would start importing these items from neighbouring countries like India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
The local fruit and vegetable businessmen export more than 20 tonnes of fruits, vegetables and halal meat products every day to countries like Dubai, Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, the US and various European countries through PIA and other airlines. Amid PIA shutdown, these products have not been transported to their destinations causing losses of millions of rupees to the exporters.
Aslam Pakhali of All Pakistan Vegetable Exporters and Importers Association told Pakistan Today that more than 30 per cent of the perishable items including fruits, meat, and vegetables were being exported through the national carrier to European, American and Arab markets while 60-70 per cent of the perishable items were being transported through other foreign airlines.
He said that more than 20 tonnes of goods including perishable food were already held at PIA’s cargo holds in Karachi and other airports of the country, while other airlines were raising their cargo prices because of on-going strike of PIA.
He said if the strike goes on for a long time, they would have to bear a loss of Rs 4 million every day while the foreign clients may not trust them in future. He said that big departmental stores in the US and Europe were importing halal products as well as fruits and vegetables from Pakistan and that the local business community could not bear the financial loss or the permanent loss of foreign clients.
Some 12 countries of the world rejected Pakistani vegetable exports in 2014-15 while exports to 55 other countries have declined by 30-35 per cent in first seven months of the current fiscal year, said Karachi Vegetable Market Association President Haji Shahjahan.
He said that in 2014-15 Pakistani exporters sold their vegetables and other perishable items to more than 90 countries in the world, but that this year, the country was exporting its products to only 49 countries.
“We have not been allowed to enter the cargo office for the last two days,” said an official of PIA cargo office. “Perishable goods cannot be exported if they are not in good condition,” he added.
He said that there was no PIA flight scheduled to fly from Karachi Airport today because of the PIA employee union’s strike calls.
