FP sector will be made more transparent & attractive to investors: Sahai

The union minister of food processing industries, Subodh Kant Sahai, has said that the Vision 2015 document on food processing industries had suggested a number of measures aimed at enhancing and stabilising the income level of the farmers.

It also provides choice to consumers in terms of greater variety and taste including traditional ethnic food, providing greater assurance about safety and quality of food to consumers. "This enables promoting a dynamic food processing industry, enhancing the competitiveness of food processing industry in both domestic as well as international markets, making the sector transparent & attractive for both domestic and foreign investors, achieving integration of the food processing infrastructure from farm to market, having a transparent and industry friendly regulatory regime and putting in place a transparent system of standards based on science," Sahai said.

Replying to a question in the Rajya Sabha recently, he said, the Vision 2015 document also envisioned tripling the size of the processed food sector by increasing the level of processing of perishables from 6% to 20%, value addition from 20% to 35% and share in global food trade from 1.5% to 3% by 2015. As against this, it is estimated that currently, the processing levels have increased to about 11% with value addition estimated at 26%.

Source: http://www.fnbnews.com/article/detnews.asp?articleid=28864&sectionid=2