India's paddy procurement has been well on target and the government has built up sufficient stock so that there is no concern at all on rice for the current year, Union Minister Piyush Goyal said on Tuesday. He said that on the wheat front, there has been a slight delay because of the unseasonal rains.
"I have been receiving reports that in the next few weeks, we'll be seeing a significant amount of stocks coming in there. There is absolutely no concern about the procurement in the current year, particularly since the export of wheat continues to be restricted and will not be allowed except for the G2G relationships," Union Food Minister Goyal told reporters here. Goyal is here to participate in the India-France business summit.
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"Our paddy procurement has been well on target and we have built up sufficient stock so that there is no concern at all on rice for the current year and we still have a second season where we'll get additional stocks coming in," Goyal said. He was replying to a question on early projections about weak monsoon this time and its impact on overall food production and procurement.
When asked about any plans to review the wheat export ban decision, he said there are no such plans at the moment. On Sugar, he said, the government has already given out the quotas for 6 million tonnes and there are no plans to increase that at present.
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The minister said India has done an honourable job on food inflation that has been well under control. "On the contrary, there have been products where I've been required to intervene so that farmers could get a better price like pay intervention for the onion farmers. So that they could get a good price for their produce," he added.
Replying to a question about IMF cutting growth projection for India and if it would impact investments in India, Goyal said he did not get that feeling in his meetings with businesses here.The reality is that India is a large market and crores of aspirational young Indians are looking for a better quality of life and that itself is a huge domestic market, he said.
Goyal, who also holds a commerce and investment portfolio, said that India's goods and services exports are expected to touch $765 billion in 2022-23, which would be an all-time high."I think that India is gradually moving more and more into an export-led manufacturing-led economy," he said, adding that India's goods exports stood at $447 billion. Services exports could reach $320 billion to $325 billion in the last fiscal.
On the decline in the FDI numbers, the minister said that largely the FDI number has reduced in the startup ecosystem. In the post-COVID world, "we see that there has been a softening of some of those valuations. I would also believe that a lot of the pent-up investment that came into the country last year may not have continued into the next year. And therefore, we need not draw up our plans for the long term based on one year," he said.
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The interest in India continues to be very large and "my feeling is that we will see a huge inflow of investments, particularly in the post G-20 period, where a lot of business persons are coming to India", the minister noted. On the India-EU trade pact, he said India has full support from the French government and they are "very" keen that "we should progress on all fronts for a comprehensive free trade agreement, market access issues, investment protection agreement, the GI agreement".
Whether issues like a carbon tax, imposed by the EU, could hurt trade pact talks, he said all these issues are on the table and "we'll certainly" bring all these issues into the discussion. "But the important point is also that India is at the forefront of engaging with the sustainability of building up a better ecosystem improving our own carbon footprint...I think it's too early because there is no clear indication of how this is going to operate. There is not yet any clarity on the modalities and the transition period. Once we get more clarity and we are able to come to a negotiating table," Goyal said.
