After gaining approval as an entry point for fruit imports in February, Kashgar Airport in China's western autonomous region of Xinjiang received its first lot of Pakistani mangoes in June. Since the opening, a total of 41.8 metric tons (MT) of imported fruit has entered the hub, according to Urumqi customs.

The airport's air cargo director, who asked to be referred to as simply Mr. Zhang, told www.freshfruitportal.com all fruit imported over the past six months had come from Pakistan.

Zhang said this year would be a test-run for fruit imports on the Islamabad-Kashgar route, as Pakistani fruit caught a good off-season window for many local Chinese markets.

He said the majority of the fruits imported were mangoes and cherries, brought in by private Pakistani airline Rayyan Air.

Pakistani mangoes were granted market access by Chinese authorities back in 2003, yet trade volume has only seen moderate growth. One factor is that Islamabad is linked to Kashgar by the the Karakorum highway (KKH) over the Khunjerab Pass.

The distance over land of 1,300km (808mi) posed serious challenges for transporting fresh produce, leading to a high probability fruit will be wasted en route. However, the opening of the air route cuts the travel time down to 70 minutes.

Zhang said that not only did the newly added international service cut down transportation time significantly, but also offered impressive freight volume.

"The Islamabad-Kashgar service uses large cargo jets, which means it has a considerable belly compartment capacity that could take up to 18MT of cargo at a time. So we'll have enough Pakistani mangoes for local markets in Xinjiang as well as many coastal regions in China," says Zhang.

He mentioned Pakistani mangoes had an earlier harvest season than Chinese mangoes, which meant there was a strong sales window if the imported fruit could reach local shelves on time.

"However, since we just opened the new entry point, there's still a lot of paperwork to be done. So this year's imported fruits from Pakistan did not come in until June, which means they already missed the sales window," Zhang said.

"Some importers have tried to transfer to coastal markets, but June is when the mangoes from Yunnan Province and Thailand swarm into the market. So they decided in the end to sell these fruits locally in Xinjiang."

He expected Pakistani mangoes would arrive in China a month or two earlier next season, with substantial volume growth on the cards. The representative was also upbeat about opportunities for Pakistani cherries.

He said Pakistani cherries were harvested in early May and had an edge on their international rivals in terms of pricing.

"The wholesale price of Pakistani cherries is CNY30-40 (US$4.88-6.51) per kilo (2.2 pounds) and is much lower than American cherries."

As www.freshfruitportal.com has learnt from other sources, some of the importers who intended to get Pakistani mangoes this season have had to give up on the deal due to a prolonged administration approval process. In response, Zhang admitted the 41.8MT import volume this year was indeed relatively small.

"We are still overcoming the learning curve. But with China's Silk Road economic belt strategy being impletmented, trade with Central Asia will soon be easier for importers and exporters in the region -cuts on tariff, less paperwork, just to name a few potential benefits.

"So I think we'll see significant growth in the import volume of Central Asian fruits and their stronger presence across China's retail chains."

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