Floriculture exports from India have surpassed Rs.250 crore, as against less than Rs.20 crore a decade back, Shri Kamal Nath, Union Minister of Commerce & Industry, said while speaking at the Flora Expo 2005 – International Exhibition and Conference, in Bangalore today. Pointing out that despite its outstanding competitive strengths in floriculture, India’s share in the US $ 80 billion world floriculture market is a miniscule half a percent, he said “a lot more needs to be done in this field, as our flower industry has the potential to be a ‘blooming’ business”.
Outlining the efforts being made by the government to catalyse the development of common infrastructure for floriculture and related sectors, Shri Kamal Nath said that a flower auction centre in Bangalore was nearing completion, while auction centres and wholesale markets were also coming up in Mumbai and NOIDA. Besides this, “60 Agri Export Zones (AEZs) have already approved by the government. Out of these, 6 are for floriculture, two in Tamil Nadu and one each in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Uttaranchal and Sikkim. Uttaranchal Floriculture AEZ is already a success story. Large-scale multiplication of flower bulbs in technical collaboration with Holland has enabled availability of good quality planting material to small growers in the AEZ at half the price as compared to imported bulbs, the Minister said.
Earlier, in his address at the meeting of Karnataka Chamber of Commerce & Industry in Bangalore, Shri Kamal Nath said that a cardinal feature of his policies would be to rid trade of transaction costs. He sought inputs from industry which would help the government to finalise the alternative to the Duty Entitlement Pass Book (DEPB) scheme.
The Minister also inaugurated the New Import Cargo Facility at the Bangalore Air Cargo Complex today. He said his Ministry had been actively promoting systemic and procedural changes to upgrade the airport infrastructure as around 40% of India’s trade by value takes place by air. “With the assistance of APEDA, state-of-the-art centers for perishable cargo have been set up at Chennai, Hyderabad, Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Trivandrum at a considerable cost. Creation of similar facility at Ahmedabad, Kolkata and Amritsar is likely to be completed soon. Walk in type cold rooms have also been set up at Coimbatore, Ahmedabad and Lucknow”, he said.
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SB/MRS