India, the world's largest producer of mangoes, is set to increase its exports to overseas markets this year, the result of greater demand from Middle Eastern countries.
That was the verdict of Indian promotion body Agricultural and Processed Food Export Development Authority (APEDA), which announced recently that it expected mango exports to increase 8.5 per cent to some 90,000 tonnes this season, Press Trust of India reported.
'We expect overseas sales of mangoes to cross 90,000 tonnes in the 2010/11 season, driven by higher demand in the Middle East,' a senior APEDA official told the publication.
Despite the increase, exports still account for a relatively small portion of the country's total production, which was pegged at 12.5m tonnes last year.
Exports during the previous campaign, which ran from March to July, came to 83,000 tonnes and headed to key markets in the Middle East, the US and the UK among other countries.
