ISLAMABAD, (APP – UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News – 4th Sep, 2026) Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Ahsan Iqbal on Friday said Pakistan’s exports must become the engine of economic growth and a key source of economic independence, stressing that the country needs extraordinary growth in exports to achieve the target of becoming a trillion-dollar economy by 2035.
Addressing a roundtable conference on “Unlocking Pakistan’s High-Value Agriculture Export Potential: Threats and Opportunities,” he said Pakistan would have to raise its exports beyond $100 billion by 2035 to sustain high economic growth and reduce dependence on external borrowing.
He said borrowing from international markets or repeatedly approaching the IMF and friendly countries to meet foreign exchange requirements was only a temporary arrangement, while the permanent solution lay in enhancing the country’s capacity to earn foreign exchange through exports.
Ahsan Iqbal said Pakistan’s young population could become a major demographic dividend if the economy achieved a growth rate of 6 to 8 per cent, enabling the country to create better employment and education opportunities.
He stressed the need for at least 10 years of continuity in economic policies to transform the economy, noting that political instability and frequent policy disruptions had hindered Pakistan’s development and export performance.
The minister said agriculture remained the backbone of Pakistan’s economy but the country was still importing billions of Dollars worth of agricultural commodities despite possessing considerable potential to earn foreign exchange from the sector.
He called for shifting from commodity-based agriculture towards value-added production, saying Pakistan needed to develop competitive agro-food, horticulture, livestock and processed food exports to reduce vulnerability to fluctuations in international commodity prices.
He stressed aligning agricultural products with international quality, compliance and traceability standards, particularly in view of growing global demand for safe, organic and health-conscious food.
Ahsan Iqbal said Pakistan also had significant potential to expand halal meat exports, particularly to middle Eastern markets, but this required modernizing the livestock sector and improving disease control and compliance with international standards.
He stressed the need for greater investment in food processing and completion of agricultural value chains to reduce post-harvest losses and generate higher export margins through products such as fruit pulp, dried and processed foods.
The minister said modernization of agriculture was essential to improve productivity and competitiveness, while climate change required Pakistan to adopt smart agriculture, new technologies and climate-resilient, weather-resistant seeds.
He said the government had already taken steps to strengthen agricultural cooperation with China, including sending 1,000 agricultural experts to China last year to learn new technologies, while another batch of 1,000 people associated with the agriculture sector would be sent this year.
He also highlighted the need to strengthen agricultural research and innovation, saying research institutions must focus on developing improved crop varieties, technologies and solutions that directly address farmers’ needs and climate challenges.
Ahsan Iqbal said greater private-sector participation could help transform agriculture, citing the maize sector as a successful model that could be replicated in other areas.
He called for development of cold-chain, storage and processing infrastructure to address seasonal production imbalances and enable Pakistan to access new international markets.
The minister also stressed the need to overcome fragmentation in the agriculture sector through modern cooperative models that could create economies of scale, facilitate investment and enable small farmers to adopt modern farming practices.
He said unlocking Pakistan’s high-value agricultural export potential required coordinated efforts to modernize production, strengthen value chains, meet international standards and build climate-resilient agriculture.
