INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITIES

Agriculture Sector
Major agricultural products of this region are -Grains : Rice, Pulses: Moong ( Green Gram), Oil Seeds: Sunflower and Sesumum (Til), fruits: Sapota, coconut, Vegetables : Chilies, Tomato, Lady's Finger, Gourds, Mushroom Present infrastructure for preservation & management and processing of marketable surplus is not sufficient. There is ample scope of investment opportunities in developing market centers, warehousing, cold storage and cold chain both for internal and export markets.

Fishery Sector
West Bengal is the highest producer of shrimps in the country of which the lion's share comes from Sundarban. The shrimps are frozen and sold without further processing. The estuarine areas of Sundarban are ideally situated for extensive culture of prawns & shrimps especially the Tiger and Rosenberger prawn varieties, which are amongst the highest quality of shrimps demanded in international market. It also produces significant sweet water fish and mud crabs in the wetlands and existing water bodies. A major portion of catch in sea fishing harbours in Sundarban. Commercially important species are Hilsa, Pomfret, Ribbonfish, Catfish, and Shrimps etc.
Investment in infrastructure for the seafood processing industry especially in the areas of freezing plants, cold storage, ice factory, refrigerated transport system, fish canning & packaging, dehydring for internal and international markets. Sundarban has a total area more than 0.80 million ha under brackish water pisciculture, which can be brought under scientific culture for increasing production under unit area. This area also requires better technology and supportive investment. Setting up of shrimp hatchery and fishfeed units for juvenile and growing fish varieties.

Forest Sector
Considerable quantity of honey and bee wax is collected seasonally from wild bee-hives of Apis Dorsata in the Sundarban Mangrove Forests This variety also makes hives in fringe areas. The apiculture in forest fringes with Apis Mellifera is also coming up in large scale, which increases total production of raw honey.
There is scope for developing the value added products highlighting the Sundarban honey and other ancillary products for internal and export markets.

Tourism Sector
The investment plan for the Indian Sundarban should be based on a broad and inclusive approach to the definition of eco-tourism : "Styles of tourism that positively respond to the needs of local communities and enhance the conservation of the protected areas". The pattern of development in tourism in this region should be in and around the Sundarban Tiger Reserve [STR] and Sundarban Reserve Forest [SRF] and should be focused on Nature Tourism. This will be determined largely by the improvement to the essential tourism products, which include the unique biosphere and World Heritage Site, long stretches of firm sea beaches and national pilgrimage destination etc. of Sundarban. Providing facilities for movement and halting both to the domestic and international tourists as well as improvements to quality of the presentation of these essential products are the comer stone of success in this venture. The improvement in these sectors is essentially required the productive partnerships between public, private and community stakeholders and to actively foster development options that favour local participation and community benefits.
In the recent years, some private entrepreneurs have started venturing into the field and it is expected that they would abide by basic principles of eco-tourism in order to protect the Sundarban on sustainable basis. It is envisaged that the eco-tourism is the most prospective industry, which can thrive in Sundarban involving investment in appropriate sectors at the same time causing no damage to the environment of this sensitive biosphere.