Pakistan, the fifth most populous country in the world with more than 200 million people, has never been a major trade partner for Ukraine.
But over the past two years, Ukrainian grain exports to the Asian country have skyrocketed from $468,000 in 2018 to $258 million last year, accounting for nearly 60% of all bilateral trade.
Sadly, this surge might be temporary.
Pakistan suffered from a poor wheat harvest during this period and its government sought grain from abroad, according to Iftikhar Ahmad Khattak, chairman of the UkrainianPakistani Society of Friendship and Business Cooperation.
“There were so many purchase deals because the country needed a lot of wheat to make flour,” Khattak told the Kyiv Post. “This year there was not such a demand as in the previous one.”
Pakistan bought some 400,000 tons of wheat last year from two Ukrainian agricultural companies, according to Nikolay Gorbachov, head of the Ukrainian Grain Association.
But Pakistan also bought three times that amount from Russia, which disappointed Khattak.
“I was upset that it was not bought from Ukraine, because the country can fully satisfy the demand of the state of Pakistan,” he said.
According to Gorbachov, this year Ukraine can easily export 24–26 million tons of wheat.
“We will compete with everyone in the Black Sea region,” he said.
Currently, Ukraine has an advantage over many other exporters. This includes Russia, which has a fluctuating weekly custom duty on its grains based on imprecise predictions of world prices. Ukraine has no such barriers.
“Ukraine took a very wise position,” said Gorbachov. “Currently, the Russian market is very risky.”
He hopes Pakistan will remain a regular trade partner but “everything will depend on the prices that the world market will set.”
Strategic cooperation
If trade can expand beyond grain, both countries have much to offer one another.
Ukraine can also supply peas, oats and soybeans to Pakistan. It could also become a logistic hub for Pakistan’s textiles, fruits and vegetables, in Khattak’s opinion. These products can be resold to the European Union after arriving in Ukraine.
“Ukraine and Pakistan can trade a lot of products with each other,” he said.
Some seasonal Pakistan fruits, like mangoes or tangerines, can be found on the shelves of Ukrainian supermarkets.
For instance, last year, around 16,000 tons of Pakistani tangerines — 400 containers with 40 tons of fruits in each — were delivered by cargo ships to Odesa seaport and Pivdennyi seaport.
Pakistani textiles are another attractive option. For example, they can be used for curtains and bed linen. So far, Khattak has received several requests from Ukrainian entrepreneurs who asked specifically about Pakistani fabric, and not Chinese, Korean or Japanese.
“Pakistan makes really good cotton,” he noted.
One of Khattak’s biggest dreams is to sell Pakistani threads to make fabric in Ukraine.
“It would create jobs and revenue for the state budget,” he said.
But to boost bilateral trade, Ukraine and Pakistan have to solve one major problem — weak dialogue at the top official levels.
Although there have been some shifts in recent years, Khattak considers that “not much has changed over the past decade.”
“There are no meetings at the governmental level, nor official meetings among MPs,” he said. “You have to promote yourself, and I don’t see enough of that in Ukraine.”
Meanwhile, Gorbachov thinks Pakistan first needs to deal with its own internal problems. The Taliban takeover of Afghanistan caused a flood of refugees into Pakistan.
“There is now such political instability that it is very difficult to predict what will happen next,” he said.
