MAKING A POINT: Union Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh addressing a meet on `Mango exports' at Tirupati on Saturday.

TIRUPATI: Union Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh has said that decks have now been cleared for the export of mangoes from India to Japan as the latter agreed to lift the 20-year-old ban.

He said that since the problem of `fruit fly' pest has now been effectively addressed, the Japanese Government has lifted the ban and listed six varieties of mangoes as eligible for export to the country.

Similar negotiations with the United States of America are also in final stages and we possibly hope to start exporting from next year, he said.

He was participating in a programme on mango exports organised here by the Andhra Pradesh Exports Development Agency (APEDA) and the Horticulture Department as part of an ambitious scheme to achieve in the next ten years the Rs.50,000-crore mark vis-a-vis the export of mangoes from Chittoor and other surrounding districts which account for the bulk of the mango production in the State. As a prelude to this, the Minister has today laid the foundation stone in Tirupati for a Rs.10-crore `Vapour Heat Treatment Plant', which would tackle the `fruit fly' menace and asked the APEDA and the Chittoor district administration to ensure the commissioning of the plant by May 15 so that the first consignment, possibly the famous `Banganapalli' variety, could be lifted to Japan in June.

He said other allied facilities like the cold storage at the airport cargo terminal in Tirupati, refrigerator van to ferry consignments between Tirupati-Chennai would also be simultaneously put in place and asked Money, Managing Director of APEDA, who was also present at the programme, to expedite the works.

He said as a follow-up measure, the State Minister for Agriculture would be convening a meeting in Hyderabad on January 9 to hammer-out an action plan for the whole scheme.

Ramesh said that he was particular about exporting only fresh mangoes, as it alone would ensure that the entire benefit trickled down to the farmers .

The six varieties cleared for export by the Japanese Government include Alfonsa, Banganapalle, Kesar, Lagad and Mallike.

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