GCMMF exports set to top Rs 125 crore

Dairy exports of the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF) are set to cross Rs 125 crore by the end of the current financial year. This accounts for over 55 per cent of the country's total dairy exports of Rs 225 crore.

The Rs 3,000 crore GCMMF's export had fallen to Rs 44 crore in financial year 2003-2004, as compared with exports of Rs 78 crore in the previous year due to the acute shortage of milk in the country.

The co-operatives major has already crossed Rs 100 crore of dairy exports, and plans to close the current financial year with a exports in excess of Rs 125 crore.

It also hopes to achieve a 50 per cent growth in the next financial year over the current financial year's numbers on account of the increased international demand.

"We are prepared for the post-quota scenario by investing in various cost reduction and quality control measures. Skimmed milk powder accounted for over 70 per cent of our overall exports. Our new product, ultra heat treated milk, has been well accepted in the international markets along with our cheese, ice-cream, full cream milk powder, gulab jamuns, shrikhand," R S Sodhi, chief general manager, GCMMF, said.

The co-operative exports to countries like the Middle East, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Hong Kong, Philippines, Combodia amongst others. It exported its products to Algeria, Afghanistan and various other African countries for the first time in the current year.

"Amul Sleak has helped us cut down on production costs. However, India's import duty on milk "" at around 40 per cent "" is very low compared with the subsidy offered to 65 per cent subsidies offered to dairies in Europe and the US. Thus, there is a need to hike import duty on milk and milk products," said BM Vyas, managing director, GCMMF.

Innovative use of technology and proper resource management can help the industry achieve export competitiveness in terms of price, yield and quality, said Vyas.

"We can successfully meet the challenges and harness new opportunities if we adopt the latest technology for processing, packaging and marketing of milk and milk products. We need to organise milk producers and professionally manage their workings," he added.

India is the biggest producer of milk in the world with an output of over 90 million tonnes.

But productivity has remained low at 990 kg per lactation per year, compared with the world average of 2,030.