Pakistan’s International Multi Group of Companies plans to make higher-value sesame products at home for export, as rapidly growing shipments to China create opportunities to capture more value from the crop before it leaves Pakistan.

The conglomerate, known as IMGC, has built a processing plant of about 2,000 square metres and is in talks with Chinese equipment suppliers, Wang Li, the group’s China representative told China Economic Net in an interview on the opening day of the China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS) in Beijing.

It is working to install machinery to turn sesame into products including oil and paste, rather than selling mainly cleaned seed, Wang said. The plant will use equipment from China.

China has become a key market for Pakistani sesame. Pakistan shipped 103,340 tonnes of sesame seed worth $105.29 million to China in the first seven months of 2026, up 110.8% in volume and 72.2% in value from a year earlier, according to data from China’s General Administration of Customs.

One measure of Pakistan’s limited downstream sesame exports is oil. Shipments of sesame oil and its fractions totalled just $228,470 in 2024, or 25.7 tonnes, according to World Bank WITS data based on UN Comtrade. Almost all went to China.

That gap is opening another channel in Pakistan-China farm trade, with some of the processing technology from the end market being brought back to where the crop is grown.

IMGC, a diversified group whose businesses include edible oils, commodities and international trade, opened a Beijing office in April after years of selling directly to Chinese commercial buyers, Wang said.

The group traces its operations to 1985 and already has substantial edible-oil manufacturing in Pakistan.

Wang said Chinese suppliers’ familiarity with standards required in China was another attraction, which she believed could make it easier to produce for the Chinese market.

“Using this equipment, the products you make will basically meet Chinese national standards,” she said.

The latest plan would move more sesame processing into Pakistan as the group seeks to sell higher-value products into its fast-growing Chinese market.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan (INP) — Pak-China