Indo- Italian Business Mission on Food Processing, India-US bilateral ties, Swachhata Pakhwada a Ocean Information Services, high Export of Coir and Coir Products, India’s first trans-shipment hub
1. Digital Indo- Italian Business Mission on Food Processing
- The role of food processing sector in current scenario, Union Minister said that with a shift in the industry landscape, many food processing companies are attempting to diversify and expand their product line-up.
- The versatile equipment that can produce many different product types, allowing companies to increase their output without major changes to their facilities will be the preference.
- The Italian Food and Equipment related companies therefore have much to look forward to the Indian markets in order to expand their global outreach.
- India and Italy are natural partners, when it comes to the Food Processing Industry and in European Union, Italy has one of the largest Indian diaspora.
- The new era of opportunities in the food processing sector with various segments emerging as the champion segments such as ready to eat, frozen food, superfood, nutraceuticals etc.
- Countries are looking to re-align their supply chains and, India, also known as the world’s fruit & vegetable basket, offers ample opportunities for sourcing raw material.
- India also offers one of the fastest growing market for finished processed food products.
- Our experience of handling the pandemic shows that food Processing has emerged as a Champion sector.
- The Digital Sectorial business Mission, the Minister said that 23 Italian companies that are part of this Digital Mission are having a virtual exhibition of their products & services and would be having Business (B2B) Meetings with the end users and other industry players in India.
- Meetings and the webinars would be spread across the key areas – Fruits & Vegetables, Cereals, Milk & Dairy processing, Packaging & Bottling and also there would be opportunities for technical collaborations with the units located in the Mega Food Parks.
- The engagement of the Associations from both India and Italy will ensure that there is an institutional connect as well.
- Union Minister highlighted various opportunities offered by MoFPI in the form of ready infrastructure such as Mega food parks, agri export zones and industrial parks, estates, clusters, nodes.
- Further shared details of schemes such as PMKSY, PM FME and the recent announcements made under Aatmanirbhar Bharat package.
- India looks forward to partnerships with Italy in the area of food processing, which shall further strengthen and consolidate relations between our two countries.
2. India-US bilateral ties in promoting global stability, security and economic prosperity
- The India-U.S. CEO Forum was held on 14th July 2020, through a telephonic conference.
- This is the fifth time the Forum has been convened since its reconstitution in December 2014 by the Governments of India and the USA.
- The Forum is an effective platform to highlight key issues that affect business entities and to identify areas for closer collaboration for mutual benefit of both economies.
- A new set of reforms and policy recommendations, deliberated jointly by CEO forum members, were presented at the meeting, to further boost bilateral investment opportunities across key sectors of the economy, including Healthcare and Pharmaceuticals, Aerospace &Defence, Infrastructure & Manufacturing, Entrepreneurship & Promoting Small Businesses, Energy, Water & Environment, ICT and Digital Infrastructure, Financial Services, Trade & Investments, among others.
- Minister Piyush Goyal reiterated the extraordinary momentum developed in the India-US bilateral ties, driven by strong shared interests in promoting global stability, security and economic prosperity.
- The India Co-Chair, Mr. Chandrasekaran stressed the global efforts underway to rebalance global supply chains, due to both geo-political and trade related issues and welcomed the opportunity to partner with the US private sector and government to help support and facilitate a strong pivot to India.
- The need for a Free Trade Agreement as a natural progression and outcome of the deepening commercial engagement between the two countries.
- Also the US government should recognise the contribution of India’s human capital to the US economy, and the need for unhindered cross-border mobility of such talent.
- Sustainable Growth Pillar is an important pillar of India–US Strategic Energy Partnership co-chaired by NITI Aayog and USAID.
- The SG pillar entails energy data management, energy modelling and collaboration on low carbon technologies as three key activities.
- In the joint working group meeting of the Sustainable Growth Pillar on July 2, 2020, an India Energy Modeling Forum was launched.
- There exist energy modelling forums in different parts of the World.
- The Energy Modelling Forum (EMF) in USA was established in 1976 at Stanford University to connect leading modelling experts and decision makers from government, industry, universities, and other research organisations.
- The forum provides an unbiased platform to discuss the contemporary issues revolving around energy and environment.
- In India, there was no formalised and systematic process of having a modeling forum.
- Even then, various think-tanks/research organisations like TERI, IRADe, CSTEP, CEEW, NCAER, etc., have been consistently developing scenarios and contributing through modelling studies and analyses to provide required inputs to MoEF&CC and other relevant ministries, including NITI Aayog.
The India Energy Modelling Forum will accelerate this effort and aim to:
- Provide a platform to examine important energy and environmental related issues
- Inform decision-making process to the Indian government
- Improve cooperation between modelling teams, government, and knowledge partners, funders
- Facilitate exchange of ideas, ensure production of high-quality studies
- Identify knowledge gaps at different levels and across different areas
- Build capacity of Indian institutions
3. Swachhata Pakhwada by Hyderabad for Ocean Information Services
- The Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), Hyderabad is a globally recognized autonomous institution under Ministry of Earth Sciences, Govt. of India.
- The Centre provides free dedicated ocean information services to the Nation, using state-of-the-art technology and research, for increasing Safety and Profit.
- The three primary services provided are the Tsunami Early Warning Service, Ocean State Forecast Service and Potential Fishing Zone Advisory Service.
- Swachhata Pakhwada was held at the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services till 15 July.
- Several activities were conducted towards awareness generation of the mission objectives to eradicate open defecation, efficient management of solid and liquid waste, encourage cost effective and appropriate technologies for ecologically safe and sustainable sanitation, overall cleanliness etc.
- These included plantation of trees at ITCOocean campus (saplings arranged from the Govt. of Telangana under Haritha Haram mission ), awareness campaign and distribution of personal hygiene materials to INCOIS outsourced (housekeeping, gardening, security, electrical etc.) staff, single-use plastic avoidance pledge and campus sanitization.
- The programme was inaugurated with a webinar on “Open Defecation Free India : A Case Study of Krishna District in Andhra Pradesh” by Ms. J Kiranmai, Registrar, Institute for Public Enterprise on 1st July 2020. Another focused webinar on “Swachch Samudra” was presented by Dr. Nimit Kumar, Scientist, INCOIS on 13th July 2020.
- A special webinar on “COVID19: Protector or Polluter to the Oceans” was presented by Shri. Sivaiah Borra, Scientist , INCOIS during the valedictory session of the Pakhwada. Contest winners were also announced.
4. All time high Export of Coir and Coir Products Records by India
- The export, of coir and coir products from India worth Rs. 2757.90 crore for the year 2019-20, registers an all-time high record, which is around Rs. 30 crore higher than that of the last year i.e. 2018-19 which stood at Rs. 2728.04 crore.
- 9,88,996 MT of coir and coir products were exported during the year 2019-20 from the country as against 964046 MT exported during the preceding year.
- While the exports of coir pith, tufted mats, coir Geo-textiles, coir rugs and carpets, coir other sorts, coir rope and power-loom mats registered growth both in terms of quantity and value.
- The products like hand-loom mats, coir yarn, rubberised coir and power-loom matting showed decline in terms of quantity and increase in terms of value.
- Coir pith with export earnings of Rs. 1349.63 crore constituted 49% of the total export of coir products from the country.
- Coir fibre with an export of Rs. 498.43 crore constituted to 18% of the total exports.
- The value added items put together constituted 33% of the total exports.
- Tufted Mats topped among the value added products (20% in value).
- The export of coir and coir products never showed decrease during the period, which shows there is no chance for the coir entrepreneur to worry about the business.
- The domestic market for coir and coir products also shows an increasing trend.
- Exports are made through several ports of India out of which around 99% of the Exports of Coir and Coir Products are made through Tuticorin, Cochin and Chennai Ports. The other main ports of export of coir and coir products are Vishakapattanam, Mumbai, Kolkata etc. Small quantities of exports were made through roads from Kannur, Coimbatore and Rexual.
5. India’s first trans-shipment hub - Vallarpadam Terminal of Cochin Port,Kerala
- Minister of State for Shipping (I/C) Shri Mansukh Mandaviya has reviewed the development activities of Vallarpadam Terminal of Cochin Port.
- It is envisaged as first trans-shipment port of India, managed by DP World.
- Shri Mandaviya directed officials to chalk out the strategy to tackle the various challenges and actualize the vision of Trans-shipment Hub of India and pioneer hub in the South Asia.Shri Mandaviya said “We are developing trans-shipment facility on Indian port to ensure that Indian cargo trans-ship through Indian Port.
- Resolving various issues of Vallarpadam Terminal is one of the top priority of the Ministry of Shipping.”
- Trans-shipment Hub is the terminal at the port which handles containers, stores them temporarily and transfers them to other ships for the onward destination.
- The Kochi International Container Trans-shipment Terminal (ICTT), locally known as the Vallarpadam Terminal is located strategically on the Indian coastline.
It successfully fulfills all the criteria which are needed to develop it as trans-shipment hub which include:
- It is best positioned Indian port with regard to proximity to International sea routes;
- It is located at least average nautical distance from all Indian feeder ports;
- It entails a connectivity which has multiple weekly feeder connections to all ports on West & East Coast of India, From Mundra to Kolkata;
- It has proximity to key hinterland markets of India;
- It has the infrastructure to manage large ships and capacity to scale it up as per requirement.
Vallarpadam Terminal of Cochin Port is proposed to be developed as most preferred gateway for South India and leading trans-shipment hub of South Asia.
