Beijing, Oct 22: India has started a determined bid to make a foray into China's growing market for coffee, tea, rubber and tobacco as well as a variety of agricultural products, industry officials said here. Realising the potential of the Chinese market, officials representing the Indian coffee, tea, rubber, tobacco, cotton and agricultural process food industries were here recently to explore and liase with their Chinese counterparts.
"We are in China for the first time to introduce Indian coffee to the Chinese people," the deputy director (external) of coffee board, M C Ponnanna said. Coffee board, which participated in the largest-ever 'Made in India' exposition organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) here, provided hot coffee to the visitors and many Chinese people liked the aroma and taste of Indian coffee, he said.
"With the growing income of Chinese people and the changing lifestyles of the youngsters, I feel Indian coffee could have a good market in China," Ponnanna said.
However, Indian coffee exporters may have to work hard in the Chinese market since top players from Brazil and Columbia are active here, he said. "We should convince the Chinese that India, which is one of the very few countries who can produce both varieties of coffee - arabica and robusta - is the right choice," he said.
Since India is China's neighbour, shipping to China from India won't be much of a problem, he said. Bureau Report