Archana Sharma – New Delhi
The Forum of Indian Food Importers (FIFI) is in talks with the food safety authorities to reduce the challenges being faced by various international food importers. Amit Lohani, founder director, FIFI said, “Presently the international food importers are dealing with issues like excessive taxation and ambiguity in the food safety laws and labelling regulations. We are having various discussions with the food safety authorities and are looking at removing unnecessary details on the labels and reduction in taxes.” The reason for the high costs and most of the imported products being expensive is the duty and taxes as importers have to pay around 30-180 per cent duty on many products.
Elaborating on the labelling issue, Lohani stated, “Just the presence of FSSAI logo does not ensure food safety and moreover, no other local authorities of the world require the same to be mandatory, but are kept optional except for the necessary ones like Halal food certification etc.” He mentioned that international players find it difficult to understand and comply with this rule as they believe their standards to be much higher and better developed than Indian food safety standards.
Even though Lohani believes that India needs its food safety regulations, he feels that the laws and standards need to be updated. Talking about the support from the government, Lohani stated that the current ministry is proactive and understands the requirements as well as the challenges of the food processing industry. However, looking at a simpler regime and single window system, Lohani also said that removal of red-tapeism will increase the international importers interest towards the Indian market. “There are many products that we are unable to market properly, which have even set benchmarks in the India market and are important for innovation in the future. If the same procedures and regime continues, new innovations will reduce and many products like the super foods will not be able to enter and penetrate the India market properly,” he added.
Currently, FIFI has over 137 members all across India and about 28 associate members like major embassies and trade commissions which partner with them occasionally.