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Badal inaugurates India Pavilion’s 25th essay at GulFood 2020 in Dubai
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Monday, 17 February, 2020, 13 : 00 PM [IST]
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Our Bureau, New Delhi
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Minister for Food Processing Industries Harsimrat Kaur Badal inaugurated the India Pavilion at 25th edition of Gulfood, which will be held in Dubai between February 16 and 20, 2020.
She took a tour of the fair and interacted with the Indian exhibitors and urged them to make use of the platform of Gulfood 2020 for facilitating tie-ups between foreign investors and accelerate the pace of export of food products from India to the western market.
Badal, while interacting with the exhibitors, discussed the potential of business opportunities available to them in India, the UAE and other countries.
The minister held one on one meetings with the companies involved in the food business in the UAE.
Based on the discussions, it was proposed to explore the possibility of setting up a fund for providing marketing support to launch Indian products in the UAE supermarkets.
During discussions with the India-UAE Food security corridor project representative, Badal proposed that existing MoFPI-supported infrastructure may be utilised to give a headstart to the project.
She emphasised on fast-tracking the project, and mentioned that all necessary support for grounding the project will be provided by the ministry through Invest India.
Badal said that India and the UAE have been amongst each other’s largest trading partners for the last several years. Currently, the UAE is the third-largest trading partner, with bilateral trade reaching $59.909 in 2018-19.
The minister informed that the food processing sector in India, being a sunrise sector, is poised for exponential growth, and has emerged as a high growth sector, due to its immense potential for value addition, ability to control inflation and ensure remunerative prices to farmers.
Badal informed the delegates that India is a huge and promising market with a 1.3-billion population, increasing purchasing power, adequate availability of raw materials, the availability of young and skilled manpower and a number of fiscal incentives that are being offered by the Indian government for encouraging investments in this sector.
A number of steps have been taken to improve the environment of ease of doing business under the Make in India initiative of the Prime Minister which focusses on making India a global manufacturing hub.
The regulatory mechanism for food-related industries in India has been aligned with the international standards, making the Indian exports more acceptable to the global markets.
Badal added that food items are one of the major Indian exports to the UAE. While India is rich in production of food grains, fruits, vegetables and milk, it lacks in processing infrastructure. The UAE has surplus funds and technology available to create such facilities, but lacks in availability of raw material. Thus a partnership between India and the UAE can ensure food security for the Gulf nation in the times to come.
She interacted with several other companies and motivated them to increasingly focus on Make in India and providing organic solutions to further increase country’s exports.
Badal also highlighted various initiatives taken by FPI Ministry to promote food processing sector in India. She was impressed with the display put forward by APEDA and the members in the Indian Pavilion, and extended her best wishes, assuring of full support for growth of Indian exports to enable future of prosperity, with India leading the way globally. APEDA is participating with over 100 exporters at Gulfood.
She highlighted the unique advantages offered by India, along with the supportive policy environment and exhorted investors from across the globe, and the UAE to avail the benefits of the schemes of MoFPI to set up new enterprises in India.
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