New Delhi: Union food processing industries minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal today called for marketing super foods of India in the Western world due to their efficacy against Covid-19 even as she stressed the need to augment Indian food in the Ready to Eat sections in global retail outlets.
The union minister, who was the chairing the Food Processing Exclusive Investment Forum of Invest India, said the world focus was on nutritional food and this was the right time to increase India’s footprint in the world food market. She said her ministry on its part had established a dedicated Investment Facilitation Cell at Invest India for handholding both domestic and foreign investors for doing business in India.
Mrs Harsimrat Badal said the world was witnessing new challenges with the food processing sector playing a very important role in ensuring that the lockdown was successful. She said alongside this there was the issue of huge wastage of produce that was in the pipeline due to lack of transportation and logistics. “All these issues have led to opening of new opportunities which has made it possible for over 180 global investors, six State governments and the Central government to be at the same place at the same time. There are huge opportunities in all sectors and many MoFPI funded projects have also been getting new orders from new areas recently”, Mrs Badal added.
The union minister also gave details about the Project Development Cell and the Empowered Group of Secretaries that had been set up by the union government to support the food processing sector. “As companies are moving away from countries they were importing from it is time that the State and Centre come together”.
Meanwhile critical aspects for investment decisions ranging from policy incentives, industrial zones, infrastructure capabilities and special investor facilitation services were discussed at the Forum so as to make India the next Global Investments hub. The forum witnessed participation from the senior most policy makers from both Union and six State Governments including Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Telangana and Uttar Pradesh. 180 companies from 18 countries also participated in the forum.
The Investment forum webinar was attended by minister of state for food processing industries Rameshwar Teli, Andhra Pradesh Investments, Infrastructure, Industries and Commerce minister Mekapati Goutham Reddy, Assam Industries minister Chandra Mohan Patowary and Punjab Public Works Department minister Vijay Inder Singla. EOM
