Trade Performance of Indian Processed Foods in the International Market

Food processing industry in India is a sunrise sector and has gained prominence over the recent years. It is one of the largest industries and ranks fifth in terms of production, consumption, export and expected growth. With the huge production base, India can easily become leading food supplier to the world. Availability of raw materials, changing life styles and appropriate fiscal policies has given a considerable push to industry's growth. It has tremendous export potential, enabling the farmers to add value to his produce both in terms of quantity and quality so that he can meet the requirements and standards of market at all stages of value chain. Keeping this in view, present paper has been written on food processing industry from the perspective of exports. It studies the overall scenario, growth rates of export value of processed food items, major export destinations of processed food like guar gum, Jaggery and Confectionery and Cocoa products and also addresses some of the problems and policy issues that affect this sector.