As India grapples to deal with its acute storage crunch for food items, Canadian companies have offered a helping hand and shown interest in building foodgrain storage capacity in the country.
?Various Canadian companies are interested to find partners in India to build storage facility. We are having talks with our Indian counterparts to ease regulatory hurdles in this regard,? visiting Canadian agriculture minister, Gerry Ritz said on Friday.
Ritz said Canada was willing to participate in India?s efforts to augment its storage capacities as it offers immense potential.
India faces huge shortage of food storage capacities as existing godowns and warehouses have failed to keep pace with rising production and procurement.
On the potential of Indo-Canadian trade, a senior embassy official said Canada wants to increase the two-way trade which is currently pegged at $4.2 billion, would be largely driven by cooperation in agriculture.
?Canada have recently signed MoU on emerging technologies, agriculture marketing and animal product developments to increase trade between the two countries with agriculture as key focus area,? the official said. It has also signed agreements on dairy and aquaculture.
Meanwhile, vice-president of Canola Council of Canada Robert Hunter said, ?The country plans to produce 15 million tonne of Canola by 2015 and is looking at Japan, Mexico, China and India as potential markets.?
Canola is one of Canada?s most valuable crops, contributing about $14 billion to the economy and $5 billion in cash receipts to producers annually.
Commenting on the market potential for Canola oil in India, RPS Kohli, director, Jivo wellness said, ?There is strong demand for Canola oil brands . We plan to log in Rs 100 crore of business by 2012. and target 10% market share in packaged branded edible oil market in India, the size of which is estimated at Rs 10,000 crore.?