Rimini, 14-16 September 2016 - UNIDO ITPO Italy participated in the 33^th Edition of Macfrut, the international fruit and vegetable trade fair held in Rimini from the 14th - 16th of September 2016, supporting a delegation of companies from Pakistan and Mozambique.

The MACFRUT is a fast growing trade fair in the fruit and vegetable sector, representing all segments of the supply chain: production, fresh-cut, technologies, packaging, services and pre-harvest. During the 2016 edition,  around 1,000 companies, from the 5 continents, participated in this global trade fair.

The Mozambican delegation was composed by companies selected by UNIDO ITPO Italy, in the framework of the project “Support to Mozambique’s SMEs in Investment Promotion”. The company Proclisaboa is an important local company based in Zambezia, which is looking for an international partner to develop an ambitious agro-industrial project to produce soy, sesame, rice and beans; the company Finana is a young company of Manhica (North of Maputo), which is engaged in the production of highly nutritious banana flour and  looking for small installations for drying, peeling and packaging machineries. The Mozambican companies were assisted during their business meetings with their respective counterparts and represented a good opportunity for them to develop commercial and/or industrial relationships.

After the Fair, the Mozambican Delegation visited the companies: Self Globe in the Marche Region, Mulmix Spa in Padua, and the Cooperative CAPA Cologna in Ferrara, in order to have a first-hand approach with the latest technology in food processing and cereal storage to be introduced  in their respective projects in Mozambique.

Furthermore, the Pakistani delegation composed by growers, processors and machinery manufacturers companies from agro sector participated in Macfrut with the aim to learn about the latest technologies available in the industry and meet Italian counterparts to discuss specific industrial cooperation projects, taking advantage of the wide variety of cultivable fruit in the country, which includes species from temperate, subtropical and tropical climate. Among these, the variety that has the best chance of success for the export and transformation, is that of the mandarins "Citrus retícula" collected in Punjab province and considered to be of good quality, able to compete in international markets.

On completion of the program, the Pakistani delegation participated in the professional tour on post-harvesting technologies at the agricultural cooperative Agrintesa, which associates 4,000 producers of fruit and vegetables in Faenza (Emilia Romagna). The Delegates had the opportunity to learn directly from the Italian agronomists the technical aspects of cultivation and production of some fruits such as Angeleno plums, kiwis and apples and also received information about cooperatives and farmers’ organization.