Govt’s Investor Friendly Initiatives will Triple India Retail Food Market in 4-5 Years

Indian retail food market has the potential to not only double but triple in the next 4-5 years by 2020, aided by the government’s initiative to bring in systemic change, despite resistance, said General VK Singh, PVSM, AVSM, YSM (Retd), Union Minister of State, (independent charge) for statistics and programme implementation.
General VK Singh was delivering his inaugural address at the 3-Day India Food Forum 2016 held in Mumbai.
Outlining the government’s initiative, General VK Singh, who is also the Minister of State for External Affairs and Overseas Indian Affairs, said, “Next 4-5 years are going to see phenomenal growth that will make a difference to the economic health of the country.  India will be a growth story of the world five years from now as the risks for the investors will be lesser than the gains.”
He also called upon the retail entrepreneurs to go beyond the urban market to the semi-urban and rural market to ensure that their retail business is successful, if they strategize in all the three markets.
General VK Singh also called upon the retail investors to join the government initiative of Make in India and take the market and the 8 million kirana stores along with them as they are part of the value chain.
He outlined the Mudra Bank initiative of the government to fund loans to micro-entrepreneurs and also bring down the red tape to ensure ease of doing business.
Later in a reply to a query raised by B S Nagesh, Founder, TRRAIN, Mr. Singh assured the delegates at the India Food Forum that the government will do everything possible to respond to the retail industry’s demand to reduce the existing number of 46 licenses required to operate a retail store.
General VK Singh also released the India Food Report at the India Food Forum which was compiled by inputs from Nielsen, A T Kearney, Accenture, PWC, Technopak, IMRB, GS1, Institute for Competitiveness, IFC, Troika, PRICE, Wazir, Maple Capital Advisors, D’Essence Hospitality Advisory, IBEF, NRAI, IMT, IIM, Rama Bijapurkar, Dr. Rajesh Shukla and Harish Bijoor to name a few.
The Report reveals that India’s Food Retail sector comprising Food & Grocery and Food Service is valued at Rs. 25,12,962 crore (2014) and holds a 65 per cent share in the country’s total retail market. Out of this, Food & Grocery Retail is worth Rs. 23,03,496 crore and Foodservice market is valued at Rs. 2,09,466 crore. The average rate of growth during the past four years in F&G has been 15 per cent per annum and in Foodservice it has been 22 per cent per annum. The respective growth rates are expected to take these retail markets to Rs. 54,20,789 crore and Rs. 6,90,672 crore by 2020.