Sharjah Food Festival gets good response

One such pavilion of international participants is the India Trade Promotion Organisation, which is participating for the second time at the Food event. R S Malik, senior manager, ITPO, said seven Indian companies are displaying their products at the pavilion through the ITPO which is a government agency.

'We had good business last year and our pavilion participants such as the Coffee Board are witnessing a good response again this year. A participating company manufacturing water purification systems has been invited to Armenia to explore possibilities of setting up a project there, while two companies from Kochi and New Delhi have been getting inquiries about their products,' he said.

The present participants at the ITPO pavilion include also the Agriculture and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA, New Delhi) which has received many enquiries for consumer items like fresh and processed fruits, vegetables and foodstuffs, rice and cereals.

Another first-timer on their block is a company manufacturing 11 types of 'Sherbet' flavours, and whose search for a local agent has drawn many takers, he said.

Yet another foodstuffs company in their pavilion having success at the festival is Indo-Nissin Foods, whose entire stock of 31 cartons of noodles was sold out by the third day and they had to speedily order 14 cartons of this item on Tuesday night, according to its general manager R V K James.

Exports of Indian fish products to UAE increases by 2.66% in the April 2002-March 2003 period

The Marine Products Export Development Authority, a second-time participant at the Festival, is promoting frozen fish products with quality as their hallmark to beat the competition's low prices. 'We are charging 10 to 20 per cent higher prices for our products and are convinced that customers will ultimately opt for the quality we offer,' said Raj Singh, deputy secretary, Ministry of Commerce, Government of India.

Asha C. Parameshwaran, assistant director in the Authority, said the Indian marine products exports to the UAE include mainly frozen shrimps, prawns, squid, scuttle fish, besides dried and chilled seafood items.

'About 4.21 per cent (19,668 metric tones) of our marine products exports, worth $ 42.40 million (Dhs.154.76 million) went to the Middle East countries between the period April 2002-March 2003,' she said.

The UAE imported 16,937.86 tonnes of fish products during this period and the figures showed an increase of 2.66 per cent this year, Parameshwaran said.

Armenian company plans to introduce caviar

A corner stall in the festival exhibitors reveals a surprise in the form of a seller of the fish that produces the 'Black Gold' of the marine world. The 'Black Gold' is the highly prized delicacy -- caviar ­ which comes from the sturgeon fish, though many of these fishes are on display without their eggs at the stall of Koroin Havakimian from Armenia.

Havakimian is exploring the UAE market through this festival for the second year in succession following good business last year where he bagged several contracts with big supermarkets and restaurants for supply of three tones Armenian sturgeon and trout worth $ 100,000 (Dhs. 365,000).

He is confident about increasing the supply of sturgeon by about 10 to 15 tonnes to the UAE market, besides also introducing caviar here, next year.

'About 98 per cent of the people here kept asking me about caviar and I will see if the market prices are worth my efforts of exporting it here,' he said while mentioning that caviar is called black gold because its price goes up to even $ 2000 (Dhs 7,300) per kg.