Slew of investment from Dutch expected as UP CM Akhilesh Yada winds up his Netherland visit

LUCKNOW: Laying the ground for a slew of investments by the Dutch in agriculture, food processing, floriculture, dairy and river front development, Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav wound up a five day visit to Netherlands on Thursday.

Officials termed the tour as “highly successful” and claimed that the ground work for fresh investments into the state has been done and several big ticket announcements are expected to follow in the weeks ahead.

The Chief Minister along with his ministry colleagues and senior bureaucrats met top officials from the government of Netherlands, industry bodies and corporate bosses of Dutch based MNC’s which are keen to invest in Uttar Pradesh.

Among the highlights of the visit was an MoU signed between UP government and Netherlands Agro Food Tech Centre (NAFTC) in Amsterdam. NAFTC, is a Dutch public private association which focuses on developing various specialised food clusters and making use of innovative food technologies to bring efficiency and reduce food wastage. Netherlands is the world’s largest exporter of agricultural and food products and as per the MoU with NAFTC, the Dutch will share its expertise and ideas with UP for developing the state as another major hub of exports.

Netherlands is known for innovative agro-food technology which makes it one of the leading countries for export of agricultural and food products in the world.

An official explained that NAFTC will explore opportunities to set up Dutch Potato Centre, Dutch Dairy Centre, Dutch Animal Husbandry Centre and Dutch Horticulture Centre in the state under the Public Private Partnership mode. These centre’s backed by the Dutch government would facilitate relevant cluster of companies to set up their base in UP.

The Netherland had earlier set up a Dutch Potato Centre in China which formed the entire food chain right from potato seeds, storage, processing equipment and fries, and a similar set up is likely to be set up in UP, said an official.

The UP delegation along with Indian Embassy officials also visited the Flora Holland a cooperative organization of flower growers at Aalsmeer. Flora Holland which helps auction flowers and plants grown by farmers and has an annual turnover over Euro 4.5 billion. It is the largest flower auction centre in the world and popularly known as the “Flower Capital of the World”. The UP delegation comprising of Chief Secretary Alok Ranjan, Principal Secretary, Infrastructure and Industrial Development, Sanjeev Saran and Special Secretary to CM, GS Naveen Kumar was briefed on the world class concepts of market aggregation and auctioning, and how to bring buyers and growers together in order to nurture the floriculture sector in Uttar Pradesh.

Officials were instructed by the Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav to develop similar centres and “modern mandis” in UP picking up salient features from Flora Holland.