India to double expenditure on spices promotion in FY09

KOCHI, May 7 (Reuters) - India will double the expenditure on spices promotion in 2008/09 to 20 million rupees giving more importance to processed and packaged spices, a senior official of the Spices Board said on Wednesday.

"We are going to spend 20 million rupees this year to promote Indian spices in other countries," S. Kannan, director, marketing of Spices Board, told Reuters.

The board had spent about 10 million rupees in 2007/08.

The focus will be on processed and packaged spices compared with raw produce in earlier years and it is definitely going to increase the exports, he said.

India's spices exports during the April-February period rose 16 percent in volume terms to 377,000 tonnes, according to latest data from the Spices Board.

During the period, exports of value-added spices like curry powder, spice oils & oleoresins and mint products have also increased in volume and value. The export of curry powder touched an all-time high of 10,400 tonnes, an increase of 20.6 percent.

"We will promote it in 12-13 countries. U.S., France and Germany will be the major ones," Kannan said.

The board is going to promote spice oils and oleoresins products in U.S., while in France it is promoting vanilla-based products, he said.

India produces over 4 million tonnes of spices and exports around 180 spice products to over 150 countries. (Reporting by Debiprasad Nayak; editing by Sunil Nair)