2024-07-08 02:14:21
New Delhi: Now dairy and other food products including meat and poultry can be easily exported from India to Egypt. A big step has been taken to ensure that the meat and poultry products exported from India are in accordance with the Halal Standard set by Egypt. To ensure this, Egypt recently decided to formally open an office in India. This was announced by the Egyptian Ambassador to India Wael Mohammed Awad Hamed. Officials of the Agriculture and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) were also present on this occasion.
Opportunity for India
The Egyptian ambassador said that now an agency for Halal certification has been started in India. This agency will provide its services all over India. At present, this agency will certify meat and poultry products. Later, dairy and pharma can also be added to it. He said that Indian meat exporters have a golden opportunity to increase the quantity of meat exported to Egypt.
India is the largest meat exporter
India is currently the largest meat exporter in Egypt. The Egyptian ambassador said that at present the amount of Indian meat in the total meat imported to Egypt is between 75 and 80 percent. We hope that you would like to increase the meat business to 85 percent, 90 percent and 100 percent. If you want to take it to 100 percent, then you will get full support from the Egyptian government. It is worth mentioning that 99 percent of Egypt’s population is non-vegetarian.
Exports worth Rs 5,000 crore
India exported meat worth $630 million (about Rs 5,000 crore) to Egypt in the calendar year 2023. Earlier in the year 2022, it was around $600 million. It is increasing every year. Apart from India, Egypt also imports meat from countries like Brazil, America, Europe, Germany etc.
Certification has started recently
Dr. Gasser Al-Saeed, CEO of Halal Market India, Egypt’s Halal certification agency in India, said that before the year 2020, no Halal certification was mandatory there. At that time, meat was purchased on the basis of trust. But due to some irregularities, it was implemented in the year 2020. He said that no facilitation fee will be charged for Halal certification in India. Only the price list announced by the Egyptian government will be applicable. If an exporter wants to get certification of a 40-foot container containing up to 28 tonnes of meat, then he will have to pay a fee of $ 2250.