The minister of commerce & industry and civil aviation Suresh Prabhu has on Sunday said the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia have planned to invest in India in both organic and food processing sectors and decided to make India as a base for food security for the nations.
According to the Economic Times news reports, while interacting with media at the Partnership Summit organized by the Confederation of India Industries (CII), which was held in Mumbai, India, the minister said the recent developments came after India has recently announced its agricultural exports policy.
During the media interaction, Prabhu said: “India is already the largest producer of milk and the second largest producer of fruits which gives it a huge potential to export.”
Prabhu further added the Indian government has allocated which product would be exported from which district, and hence each district will be divided into clusters for the further process. For example, Maharashtra’s Nagpur district has been identified for oranges, Nashik district for grapes, and Ratnagiri for mangoes and so on. The system is working with states in order to facilitate this arrangement. However, Prabhu did not disclose any other further details about its potential investment.
Nevertheless, the export policy has removed restrictions over the export of both horticultural and organic products, and Saudi Arabia and UAE want to invest in both the sectors of India.
However, according to advanced estimates, India is expected to produce around 290 million tons of agricultural products including 310 million tons of horticultural products.