CII assures to promote export business in NE

In a bid to expedite the export promotion activities in the Northeastern state, Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) and Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) have jointly organised a meeting here today.

Tripura Industry Minister Jitendra Choudhury told UNI here that APEDA had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with four northeastern states for promotion of fruits and horticultural products in 2002 but the export promotion activities have not materialised yet.

''CII is requested to set up an export zone for horticulture since senior officials have already discussed the issue at length,'' Mr Choudhury said.

''We are hopeful that the discussion will help us to implement the project successfully soon because CII has assured to extend it’s all out support for setting up an export zone for the promotion of horticultural produces,'' Mr Choudhury added.

Earlier, the ministry of commerce has taken an initiative for promotion of export of the agricultural and processed food products of the northeastern states through APEDA and they had been asked to export indigenous varieties of rice - Komal Chawl, Bora Chawl, Bao Chawl (red rice), Joha and black rice - produced with organic farming methods to the foreign markets with export potential.

The APEDA has been trying to explore the organic products in the major markets at international level but considering the sensitivity of the buyers in the developed countries like USA and in western part of Europe, it laid stress on some research and development activities to make the products acceptable to those buyers.

They also underlined that the productivity, quality and the price of the products were the major factors, which are used to determine the acceptability of the products in the market and APEDA would take the samples of organic products to the major international trade fairs held from time to time.