YUPIA, 13 Oct: The district export action plan (DEAP) of Papum Pare, under the central government’s ‘district as export hub’ initiative, was finalised here on Thursday, with all stakeholders unanimously selecting turmeric, large cardamom and ginger as potential exportable products of the district.
Papum Pare is the only district in Arunachal Pradesh to have been selected in the first phase of the Centre’s initiative.
The produces were chosen during a meeting among the District Export Promotion Committee, progressive farmers, entrepreneurs, and other stakeholders here on Thursday.
Addressing the participants, Deputy Commissioner Sachin Rana, who along with Kolkata (WB)-based Deputy Director General of Foreign Trade Arjun Upadhya, chaired the meeting, urged the farmers and the entrepreneurs to “work parallelly, in tandem with the government.”
“Knowledge about the export business can be obtained by exposure and interaction with well-established export houses,” he said, and urged the participants to be “committed.”
Upadhya presented a brief introduction of the ‘district as export hub’ initiative, and informed that “this initiative will be based on a five-year programme, and adequate funds will be allocated for each district.”
Trade Development Officer Tai Arun dwelt on the DEAP. “The export action plan envisages establishment of an import-export cell at the DC office here, common facility centres at the Naharlagun railway station and the Donyi Polo airport, export-related training and exposure tours, conducting buyers-sellers meets, creating e-markets for promotion of locally grown agri-horti produces, marketing of locally grown agri-horti produces, organising an investment summit, ‘Invest@Yupia’, biennially to attract investments for export and foreign direct investment, etc.”
Guwahati (Assam)-based APEDA Business Development Manager Saju Adhikary spoke on ‘the role of the APEDA for export promotion and financial assistance’. He urged the progressive farmers and entrepreneurs to “get registration-cum-membership certificate and avail the benefits from APEDA.”
Matters relating to lack of market, logistic support, cold storage facility, testing labs, packaging facility, documentation, and certification were also discussed during the meeting.
Besides selecting turmeric, large cardamom and ginger as potential exportable products, the participants decided to establish common facility centres with provisions of dryer unit, testing labs, and packaging.
Twenty-two members, including HoDs and members of farmer-producer organisations, attended the meeting. (DIPRO)
