The Chairman expressed his gratitude for being part of the Dates Festival, highlighting the significance of dates in the region’s culture, economy, and agricultural landscape. He informed that date palm in Pakistan is confronted with serious issues in production, processing & value addition, and marketing. PARC is striving for increasing the gene bank of this 3^rd most important fruit crop of Pakistan. PARC has successfully introduced date palm in desert areas of Thar and Cholistan. Dr. Ali praised the dedication of date farmers, emphasizing their role in sustaining and enhancing the quality of date production in the region. The Chairman underscored the need for modernizing processing units and cold storages to maintain the high quality of dates. He urged for reducing post-harvest losses. He emphasized to provide small to medium scale processors to adopt best practices in date processing, ensuring that products meet international standards. Dr. Ali further said that PARC would like to work in collaboration with DPRI, Khairpur, Sindh on micropropagation/tissue culture and other aspects for promotion of date palm. The Chairman called for continued innovation and collaboration among farmers, processors, marketers, academia and researchers