Retail food biz in India to grow by 400%: Govt

The Indian food retail industry is expected to grow by over four hundred per cent in next five years, and share of global trade in the sector has been projected to double by 2015, a Government official said.

"Food in grocery sector is about 154 billion USD which is 77 per cent of total retail sales. two-third of the food is in retail grocery, and the organised Indian food retail is just three per cent at 7 billion USD which is expected to grow by 400 per cent in next five years," Joint Secretary, Ministry of Food Processing India, Ajit Kumar said.

Kumar was speaking at the 5th annual Agri Business Summit organised at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Ahmedabad.

Highlighting the estimated growth projection targets set by the Union Government, Kumar said the retail food industry is going to be at 20 billion USD by 2010 against the present 7 billion USD.

"We will have tremendous growth in food processing sector by 2015, increasing the level of processing of perishable from six per cent to 20 per cent, value addition which is only 20 per cent now to 35 per cent and share of our global food trade of 1.5 per cent to double by 3 per cent by 2015," Kumar said.

According to Kumar, government has taken several steps for promotion of food processing industry, including tax holidays and permission for repatriation of profits.

"The 100 per cent EOU units in SEZ can retain 50 per cent of the foreign exchange reciepts in foreign currency accounts, these are huge incentives for them," Kumar said.(2009-01-17)