MUMBAI (Reuters) - India, the world's biggest consumer of pulses, will help Mozambique in cultivation of pulses and import them through government-to-government deals in the coming years, Telecoms Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said on Tuesday.
Prices of pulses are ruling near record highs in the south Asian country as output trails supplies. The government-to-government deals will help India secure supplies of pulses, Prasad told reporters after a cabinet meeting.
India is likely to import 100,000 tonnes pulses from Mozambique in the 2016/17 financial year ending on March 31 and aims to double it in four years, he added.
India, which consumes nearly 22 million tonnes of pulses annually, sources yellow peas and lentils mainly from Canada and the United States, chickpeas from Australia and Russia, and green gram and pigeon peas from Myanmar and Mozambique.
Pulses production of India stood at 17 million tonnes in 2015-16, while imports were 5.79 million tonnes.
(Reporting by Rajendra Jadhav; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)
