Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal inaugurates India Pavilion at GulFood 2020 in Dubai

Union Minister for Food Processing Industries Harsimrat Kaur Badal on Sunday inaugurated the India Pavilion at 25th Edition of the GulFood 2020 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), an official release said here.

Harsimrat Kaur Badal 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, according to the release.

Badal motivated the exhibitors to increasingly focus on 'Make in India' and also provide organic solutions to further increase the country's exports.

Badal said: "India and UAE have been amongst largest trading partners for the last several years. Currently, UAE is the third-largest trading partner of India with bilateral trade reaching US Dollar 59.909 in 2018-19".

She held meetings with the companies, involved in 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.

She said: "A number of steps have been taken to improve the environment of ease of doing business under the 'Make in India' initiative of Prime Minister which focuses 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 also informed the delegates that India is a huge and promising market with 1.3 billion population, increasing purchasing power, adequate availability of raw materials, 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.

She said: "While India is rich in production of food grains, fruits, vegetables, and milk but lacks in processing infrastructure whereas UAE has surplus funds and technology available to create such facilities but lacks in the availability of raw material. Thus a partnership between India and UAE can ensure Food Security for the Gulf nation in the times to come.