The Telegraph (Calcutta)

Bamboo expertise for East Timor

A STAFF REPORTER

Aug. 8: The city-based Cane and Bamboo Technology Centre (CBTC) will provide expertise to East Timor, the world?s youngest nation, in a pilot project undertaken by the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (Unido).

?We will train people in the bamboo sector in East Timor and help to set up pilot industries. In all this, the CBTC will be the chief resource centre,? the director of Unido Centre for South-South Industrial Co-operation, Anthony J.C. de Sa, said here today.

De Sa had come to the city to get an overview of the bamboo sector in the Northeast and discussed the matter with officials of the North Eastern Council yesterday.

Unido selected the CBTC as it had the experience and the expertise in bamboo sector and had moved from conventional bamboo to value-added products, he added.

?We will also look forward to develop the bamboo plantations in East Timor,? De Sa said.

He said a sister organisation of the CBTC could be set up in East Timor after some progress had been made.

The centre has done a study on the bamboo sector in East Timor.

The Northeast has a special significance with respect to bamboo as it has about 60 per cent of the bamboo reserves of India and 20 per cent of the world.

According to experts, the raw stock of bamboo in the Northeast is valued at Rs 5,000 crore and utilisation of even about 25 per cent can generate Rs 2,500 crore a year.

The Unido, in a study ? Independent Evaluation-India, Unido Country Service Framework ? said the CBTC had put bamboo on the political agenda, and its services were sought by many institutions in India.

 

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