Agri-Export Zones: The Future of Pakistan’s Mango Exports

Abstract

Pakistan is an agricultural economy, 70% of our labor force is indulged in this sector, one way or the other. Despite the sector being a potential source of export earning, much of the interest of the public as well as private sector has remained on the industrial sector in the recent years. In this research paper, we are trying to explore and measure the impact of Agri-export Zones on the mango exports of India, a country very much similar to Pakistan in terms of land, climate and other socio-economic factors. For this purpose, we have used the Imperfect Substitutes Model in which export quality of mangoes of India is the dependent variable while AEZ, GDP, FDI, Exchange Rate and growth rate of GDP are the independent variables. The goal of the study is to demonstrate the importance of such zones for Pakistan’s agricultural exports, particularly mangoes. OLS regression analysis has been used to find the impact of AEZ on mango exports. A significant and positive relationship is found to exist.