Spices Board is looking at open ing promotional offices in the US, Europe and Middle ?East to shore up its volumes, union minister of state for commerce and power Jairam Ramesh told reporters on Thursday. ?To be a global player in spices, India needs to have representative offices in the big markets. We welcome private ?public partnerships for promotional centres,? he said. It could be similar to the India Tea Promotional Centre to be set up in Cairo, jointly by the Tea Board and UPASI, he added.
Jairam Ramesh said that India needs to grow at an annual rate of 20% to reach the target of $10 billion worth spices exports by 2017. ?For the last five years we are growing at annualised rate of 13% and we need to shore it up through value addition,? he said. The share of value-added spices should be more than 75% by 2017 from the present 58%, he added. Spices Board is opening ?Spices Parks? in major producing centres to assist in value addition, packing and branding.
Increasing productivity would be a key long-term strategy given that other nations are catching up with India in production. ?India has to seriously implement the re-plantation and rejuvenation programme to survive,? he said. Adding that there was tremendous scope for organic spices in the world and India stands to gain through organic spices produced in the north-east. ?North-east is a natural zone for organic spices as it is unpolluted by pesticides .We should make the cultivation of organic products a mass initiative,? he added.