South African envoy France Morule on Monday evinced keen interest in setting up of joint ventures in agro processing industry especially in the field of packaging and marketing of kinnow juice.
Punjab was the major producer of kinnow in the country and SA was too a leader in the production of citrus fruits besides having enviable dominance in the segment of fruit juice processing.
SA High Commissioner Morule, accompanied by Consul General, called on Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on Monday afternoon and invited him to lead a business delegation to SA to explore untapped potential in agriculture, coal, food processing, textile and hosiery considering tremendous export potential from there to other parts of the world as SA was a duty free zone.
Taking part in the deliberations, Badal urged the visiting Ambassador to lead a high level delegation of progressive farmers from SA to attend four-day progressive agriculture summit at Mohali from February 16.
Chief Minister also asked Morule to send a team of experts from agro processing industry to Punjab for studying and exploring ways and means to enhance value addition of kinnow through packaging and marketing its juice besides other juices from guava, peach, lemon etc.
He said that these ventures could be undertaken in the PPP mode in order to supplement stagnated income of kinnow growers. He also showed keen interest in some viable tie-ups in the field of agro-forestry and tourism through developing amusement parks here as these were quite successful and profitable ventures in SA.
Highly appreciative of investment proposals put forth by the Chief Minister, Morule said that he would certainly take up with the SA Government to set up these ventures in agro-processing besides manufacturing potato chips and wafers from potato because Punjab was also a major producer of quality potato.