The Hindu Business Line : Meat exports on the rise

THE rising trend in export of meat and preparations seen in the last two years is expected to continue in the current fiscal too with growth in demand occurring in both traditional and emerging markets.

Large investments are said to be flowing into setting up of modern meat processing facilities.

To the existing nine fully-integrated export-oriented plants with a total annual processing capacity of 8.5 lakh tonnes, three more plants with total annual capacity of 1.5 lt are going to be added in the buffalo belt of North India to cater to increasing export demand.

Southeast Asia, West Asia and Africa are the major markets for Indian meat.

According to the Commerce Ministry data, export earnings jumped from around $251 million in 2001-02 to $282 million the following year and further on to an estimated $325 million in 2003-04.

A survey done by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently has forecast that India's beef exports in 2005 will rise to 6.25 lt due to growth in demand from traditional markets such as Malaysia, the Philippines and UAE as also emerging markets such as West Africa and Saudi Arabia.

With India emerging as a rinderpest-free country, Saudi Arabia recently permitted carabeef imports from India after a period of 15 years, the report pointed out. The CIS started to import carabeef from India because of BSE problem (madcow disease) elsewhere and competitive Indian pricing. Egypt and Iran are also on the radar of Indian exporters who are waiting for resolution of sanitary issues.

As part of Tenth Five Year Plan (2002-2007), the Indian Government is in the process of setting up three FMD-free zones (foot and mouth disease-free zones) in five major states in which export-oriented meat processing facilities are located.

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