Government targets doubling food processing levels to 20%

The Government has set a target of doubling food processing levels in the country to 20% by 2019. Union Minister for Food Processing, Ms. Harsimrat Kaur Badal, who was in Mumbai today, to inaugurate the Annapoorna : World of Food 2016 International Expo & Conference, said the food processing industry is a sunrise sector ready for exponential growth. She said 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.

The Minister however lamented that despite India being one of the largest food producing countries, the level of processing is a paltry 10%, while it is 70-80% 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% to 20% by the time the 5 year term of the government is over, she said.

Ms. Badal said her ministry is facilitating ease of doing business and creating investor friendly policies and schemes to give a boost to the sector. She said 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 is expected to provide a major impetus to investments, employment and job creation in the food processing sector.

The Minister also informed that a Rs 2,000 crore corpus has been created to disperse cheap credit through NABARD for the food processing sector and several tax and duty concessions are being extended to food processing industries in 42 Mega Food Parks planned across the country.

Ms. Badal said that her recent trip to the UK has been successful and lot of international retail and food processing companies have evinced interest to enter India through joint venture with Indian companies.

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