By IANS,
New Delhi : India Inc. sees no adverse impact of banning the import of milk products from China, where nearly 53,000 children have fallen ill after consuming milk powder contaminated by the industrial chemical melamine.
“India’s import of dairy products from China is next to nil. The ban is simply a preventive measure,” said Sameer Bhedre, who deals with food related issues at the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci), an industry lobby.
“The ban is not going to have any adverse impact on the domestic dairy market at all,” Bhedre told IANS Friday.
India’s Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) Tuesday had sought three-month ban on importing dairy items from China, following which the Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) notified the ban Wednesday evening.
The decision to seek ban on the dairy products from China was taken at an FSSAI meeting Tuesday, which was attended by officials from the ministry of agriculture, commerce and industry, and ministry of health and family welfare.
As per data with the commerce and industry ministry, the country imported around 10 tonnes of cheese from China during the last fiscal.
Nearly 20 countries across the world including Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Kenya, South Korea, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, Myanmar, Taiwan and Hong Kong have stopped import of milk products from China.
India accounts for 15 percent of the world’s production of milk. It intends to increase milk capacity to 111 million tonnes per annum by 2010 from the existing 101 million tonnes.
India last year produced 70,000 tonnes of dairy products, which was about one percent of the total milk production.