In a bid to facilitate more shipments of fruits and vegetables, Apeda plans to strengthen the export infrastructure in India by setting up more packhouses and expanding the cold-supply chain over the next three years.
“We are going to focus heavily on the creation of infrastructure, mainly setting up of packhouses for fruits and vegetables over the next three years,” said D K Singh, Chairman, Agriculture and Processed Foods Export Development Authority (Apeda).
At present there are 250 Apeda-approved packhouses and another 200 in the private sector across the country. “We expect another 200-250 to come up over the next three years. Apeda will provide an assistance of up to RS 75 lakh for each of the pack houses and will spend almost RS 100 crore towards the same,” said Singh.
April-July exports up
In the April-July period of the current financial year, fruit and vegetable exports saw a 7 per cent dip at RS 2,911 crore against RS 3,124 crore in the corresponding period last year. However, the overall exports of Apeda product portfolio grew 6.24 per cent in rupee terms at RS 37,013 crore for April-July period against RS 34,839 crore in corresponding last quarter.
1 RS = 0.016 USD
1 lakh = 100,000
1 crore = 10,000,000
Source: thehindubusinessline.com
