Union Minister for Food Processing Industries, Smt. Harsimrat Kaur Badal today inaugurated the India Pavilion at 25th Edition of the GulFood 2020, Dubai being held from 16th to 20th February 2020. FPI Minister 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. The Minister, while interacting with the exhibitors, discussed the potential of business opportunities available to them in India, UAE and other countries. The FPI Minister held one on one 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 super markets.During discussions with the India UAE Food security corridor project representative, the Minister proposed that existing MOFPI supported infra may be utilised to give a head start to the project. Smt. Harsimrat Kaur Badal emphasized on fast tracking the project and mentioned that all necessary support for grounding the project will be provided by the Ministry through Invest India.Smt. Badal said that India and UAE have been amongst each other’s largest trading partners for the last several years. Currently UAE is the third largest trading partner with bilateral trade reaching US$ 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.
Harsimrat Kaur Badal 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. A number of steps have been taken to improve the environment of ease of doing business under the “Make in India” initiative of Hon’ble 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. FPI Minister added that food items are one of the major Indian exports to UAE. While India is rich in production of food grains, fruits, vegetables & milk but lacks in processing infrastructure, UAE has surplus funds and technology available to create such facilities but lacks in availability of raw material. Thus a partnership between India and UAE can ensure Food Security for the Gulf nation in the times to come.Union Minister 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. She also highlighted various initiatives taken by FPI Ministry to promote food processing sector in India. The Minister 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 more than 100 exporters in the Gulf Food.The Union Minister highlighted the unique advantages offered by India alongwith supportive policy environment and exhorted investors from across the globe and UAE to avail the benefits of the schemes of the Ministry of Processing Industries to set up new enterprises in India.