By IANS
Agartala : China will provide technology to Tripura for boosting its bamboo-based industries and creating livelihood opportunities for farmers and tribal people, officials said here Wednesday.
“For bilateral cooperation and conservation, development and value addition of bamboo and other forest resources of the north-eastern state, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) has been signed here Wednesday,” said Jitendra Chowdhury, Tripura’s forest minister.
The MoU was signed between China’s Bamboo Engineering Research Center (BERC) and the government-owned Tripura Forest Development and Plantation Corp (TFDPC).
The BERC is a well-known bamboo research centre of China’s Nanjing Forestry University.
Under this MoU, the BERC will transfer bamboo industrial technologies to the TFDPC for manufacturing floor tiles and bamboo-based hard charcoal.
There are also plans for validated usages of organic fertilisers and insecticides, bamboo fibre for manufacturing rayon-grade pulp and fibre manufacturing, bamboo-based shuttering, blinds, bamboo dye and bamboo board.
A three-member Chinese official delegation led by BERC director Zhang Qisheng is now on a four-day visit to this north-eastern state to finalise the method of transfer of technology and investment.
“Possibilities of Chinese investment to set up industrial units in Tripura for manufacturing these bamboo-based products would be explored under this MoU,” Qisheng and V.K. Bahuguna, TFDPC’s managing director, told newsmen after signing of the agreement.
“After the value-addition technology introduced in three Chinese provinces — Anhui, Anji and Chechan — 60 percent income of local people came from bamboo while prices of bamboo increased by ten times in these provinces,” Qisheng said.
An Indian delegation led by Chowdhury recently visited China to seek technical and financial assistance from Chinese institutions and also to assess work done on bamboo industrial technology for value addition of bamboo.
China is a leader in the field of bamboo utilization and value addition, and has captured more than 90 percent of the world bamboo trade.
In India, bamboo covers over 10 million hectares of forest, the majority of which is in Tripura and the other north-eastern states.
According to the MoU, the TFDPC would involve other stakeholders like the union ministry of environment and forest, national mission on bamboo application, national institute of technology and Assam’s cane and bamboo technology centre in promoting the value addition of bamboo and other forest resources.
“Once the project with Chinese assistance starts, it would open up opportunities of bilateral cooperation between the Tripura government, entrepreneurs and Chinese bamboo industries,” the forest minister said.