Spices exports from India would touch the $3 billion mark by 2017 and would cross $10 billion by 2025, said V J Kurien, chairman of Spices Board.
He told reporters that the roadmap to achieve these targets had been set and that the process was on. In the current financial year, the value of export would cross $1.6 billion against the $1.5 billion achieved in the last fiscal.
During the last year, 55 per cent of the export earnings from spices was from value-added products, and according to him this would be 80 per cent within next five years. India will become a major export processing hub for spices and spice-based products, he said.
In order to augment capacity to reach this level, 11 spices parks would be commissioned within a span of one year. Two parks had been already commissioned and parks at Guntur in Andhra Pradesh and Sivaganga in Tamil Nadu will be operational within the next three months, according to Kurien.
The number of quality testing laboratories would also be increased to 8 from the current four in the next one year. He said the Spices Board had set an export target of 600,000 tonnes of spices and spice-based products valued Rs 7,500 crore ($1.6 billion) in 2011-12.
Kurien said the production of pepper would be enhanced to 100,000 tonnes by 2015-16 as subsidy schemes were introduced for Idukki and Wayanad districts of Kerala. For Idukki, about Rs 160 crore will be spent and for Wayanad, it would be Rs 55 crore. Cultivation of pepper would be extended to non-traditional areas like the northeast region.
Production of pepper had been dropped from around 100,000 tonnes to 45,000-50,000 tonnes during the last 10-year period.
The board aims to recapture the top spot in the world from Veitnam. Kurien has relingushed the charge of the Spices Board chairman today after completing his five-year term. He will be back to the Kerala cadre of IAS officers as principal secretary.
