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Food processing ministry to host World Food Summit in New Delhi in 2017
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Saturday, 24 September, 2016, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
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Our Bureau, New Delhi
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fiogf49gjkf0d The ministry of food processing industries (MoFPI) has decided to host the World Food Summit in New Delhi in March 2017. This was stated by Harsimrat Kaur Badal, minister of food processing industries.
“To this summit, we intend to invite the entire food processing industry, including retailers, manufacturers, logistics and progressive farmers. The byline is going to be transforming the India’s food economy,” she said.
“The government plans to invite a number of countries to participate in the summit, at which every state in India will showcase what they have to offer in terms of infrastructure, investment opportunities and policy support,” Badal added.
The decision to host the summit was taken after the minister visited some European countries earlier this month for talks with prominent companies. The development is significant as the government is trying to attract investment in food retail after allowing 100 per cent foreign direct investment (FDI) in it.
Badal stated that her recent trip to the United Kingdom was successful, adding that a lot of international retail and food processing companies evinced interest to enter India through joint ventures with Indian companies.
She said that her ministry was facilitating ease of doing business and creating investor-friendly policies and schemes to give a boost to the sector.
Badal added that the government's decision to permit 100 per cent FDI in trading, including through e-commerce, in respect of food products manufactured or produced in India was expected to provide a major impetus to investments, employment and job creation in the food processing sector.
She stated that the government had set a target to double food processing levels in the country to 20 per cent by 2019,
Badal added that despite all odds, the food processing sector has been able to register a 7.6 per cent growth, much higher than the agricultural and manufacturing sector growth. She stated that the World Food Summit would further up the growth of the sector.
She, however, lamented that despite India being one of the largest food producing countries, the level of processing was a paltry 10 per cent, while it was 70-80 per cent in some of the South-East Asian countries like Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam.
“We have drawn up plans to double the level of processing from 10 per cent to 20 per cent by the time the five-year term of the government ends,” Badal said.
She also informed that a Rs 2,000 crore corpus had been created to disperse cheap credit through the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) for the food processing sector and several tax and duty concessions were being extended to food processing industries in the 42 mega food parks planned across the country.
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