India’s food processing industry will be growing at a rate of 8% a year by the end of 2007, rising to 10% a year by 2010, according to the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM).
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In a paper called ‘Food Processing Industry – WTO Perspectives’ it said that markets in developed countries will provide additional export opportunities for agricultural and agro-based processed products for countries like India due to reduction in import duties, removal of non-tariff barriers and reduction in subsidies to domestic agriculture.
ASSOCHAM president, Mahendra K. Sanghi said that the proportion of processed fruit and vegetables will increase to about 8% from the current level of less than 2% by the year 2007 which alone will call for an investment of 1.5bn rupees (US$34m) and is expected to generate employment for around 800,000 people and fetch better prices for farmers for their total produce.
Government initiatives in providing financial assistance to set up food processing parks to facilitate entrepreneurs set up their units will give further impetus to this sector. The latest estimates of the Chamber reveal that the Ministry of Food Processing has already approved setting up of about 100 food parks in states like Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Jammu and Kashmir, West Bengal, Kerala, Karnataka and few states in northern-eastern region.
Sanghi said that with the Processed Food Development Act and national food processing policy in place, opportunities for exports will be substantial for fruit and vegetables processed industry as the production of fruit and vegetable is expected to go up to about 225m tonnes by the end of 2010 and ensure that India’s share in the world trade processed food exceeds even 1.5% by this time. These projections are made because the chamber feels that the new food laws will provide for enough incentives to achieve the projected targets.
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By GlobalDataApart from EU, the other markets for processed fruit and vegetable exports will be in USA where the demand for dried topical fruits is estimated at about 5,000 tonnes of which about 3,500 tonnes would be of banana chips by the year 2007.
