In order to enhance mango exports from Pakistan to the high-value markets, Pakistan Horticulture Development and Export Company (PHDEC) has planned to hold `Mango Festivals` in UK and Holland.

The longest of this festival will be in the United Kingdom, where PHDEC along with growers and horticulture exporters will hold 14-day long festival in collaboration with a big retail store, providing opportunity to the visitors not only to see Pakistan`s leading Sindhri and Chaunsa varieties on display, but also to treat their taste buds with this fruit during the tasting sessions.

These festivals are the part of the efforts and action plan to meet the target of exporting 1,50,000 metric tons of mangoes this year. UK festival will like to start from first week of June. `Visitors to this mango festival would be served with mango milkshake and mango `lassi` a very popular drink amongst the Asians as well as other communities living in the United Kingdom to familiarise them with the Pakistani varieties`, sources in the PHDEC told Business Recorder here on Saturday.

They said that mangoes were already being exported to UK and during the last some years export to this destination remained from 18,000 metric tons to 20,000 metric tons and the PHDEC wanted to improve this from 28,000 to 30,000 metric tons. One of the major aims of this exercise is also to introduce our fruit in premium market, the sources claimed.

While the PHDEC would be holding a same kind of two-day festival in Holland. Expected dates of Mango Festival in Holland is by first week of July. In Holland, PHDEC has planned to arrange technical sessions to apprise the importers and consumers about the efforts made by the Pakistani growers, exporters and the government to meet the European Standards. He said that documentaries on the varieties of the Pakistani mangoes would also be displayed besides the briefing by technical experts.

While a single-day exhibition and festival will also be arranged in Iran as part of these efforts, the sources said. Talking about the composition of delegation to these mango festivals, the sources said that there would be two exporters, two growers and fifth would be a new entrant to these destinations.

Besides this, the sources said that this year trial shipments would also be sent to the United States during the month of May. This year it is expected that trial shipments to the US would be around 40-50 metric tons and would be sent after going through all the standard checks suggested by the US market and these would be re-checked there.

While efforts would also be made to make in roads to Russian and Chinese markets. They said that mangoes were being sent by individuals to Russia for the last two years and there was a good response and now it was the part of the plan to capture the new markets. Regarding this year`s crop, the sources stated that the crop was good and would be ripe earlier.