S African envoy keen to set up JV in agro-processing industry

South African envoy France Morule today evinced interest in setting up joint ventures in agro- processing industry, especially in the field of packaging and marketing of Kinnow juice with Punjab.
Punjab is the major producer of Kinnow in the country and South Africa was too a leader in the production of citrus fruits besides having enviable dominance in the segment of fruit juice processing, the envoy said after his meeting with Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal here.
Morule invited the Chief Minister to lead a business delegation to South Africa to explore "untapped potential" in agriculture, coal, food processing, textile and hosiery as there was a tremendous export potential from there to other parts of the world as SA was a duty free zone.

Taking part in the deliberations, Badal urged the visiting Ambassador to lead a high level delegation of progressive farmers from SA to attend the four-day progressive agriculture summit at Mohali from February 16-19 and also extended a formal invitation to him in this regard.
He hoped that both Punjab and SA could be mutually benefitted from each other's experience and expertise in the field of agriculture and food processing.
The Chief Minister also asked Morule to send a team of experts from agro-processing industry to Punjab for studying and exploring ways and means to enhance the value addition of kinnow through packaging and marketing its juice besides other juices from guava, peach and lemon.

He told Morule that the Punjab government could undertake these ventures in PPP mode in order to supplement the stagnated income of kinnow growers.
He also showed keen interest in some viable tie-ups in the field of agro-forestry and tourism through developing amusement parks here as these were quite successful and profitable ventures in SA, an official spokesman said.