Media Release

Mangalore, Oct 26: Walter D’Souza, a prominent exporter from Mangalore, Karnataka has been unanimously re-elected as the Chairman of the Cashew Export Promotion Council of India (CEPCI), under the Ministry of Commerce, Government of India, at its 51st AGM held at Kochi on 17th October, 2006.  Shri Babu Oommen of Kollam, Kerala has been re-elected as the Vice-Chairman.

 Walter D’Souza has been a member of the National board of the CEPCI for the last seven years and has served as the Vice-Chairman for 2 terms from 2001 to 2003, during which period the country’s cashew exports crossed the much awaited twin magic figures of one lakh metric tonnes in quantity and Rs. 2,500 crores in value terms per annum.

He has earned a distinct recognition for his active involvement in all the export promotion activities of the council at different state, national and International levels.

He was instrumental in organizing the First ever Global Buyer-Seller Meet(BSM) for cashews in September, 2006, which witnessed for the first time in the history of cashew trade in India the presence of over 85% of the International purchasing power of cashews in the World. In his capacity as the Chairman, He had successfully lead two all India delegations to Canada and Turkey as the leader of the Indian exporters.

More than 75% of cashew exports from India are handled by exporters based in Kerala and it was for the first time in the 50 years history of CEPCI that a non-Keralite cashew exporter was elevated to this coveted position last year.  In his re-election, he   has the distinction of being only the 6th Chairman to have been re-elected during the 51 years of the history of CEPCI.         

Walter D’Souza has the rarest distinction of having been the first elected member from the state of Karnataka on the National board of the Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO), which is the all India exporters’ apex body at the national level.  He has been either the leader or a member of several export promotion trade missions abroad under the ministry of commerce, Govt. of India to Brazil, USA, Canada, UK, Far East , Middle East and the West Asian countries.

Walter D’Souza has extensively travelled to most of the prominent countries of the world which import Indian cashews. He has also visited the African countries from where India imports raw cashewnuts. He has to his credit several presentations on different aspects of cashews at the National and International conventions.

Walter D’Souza has also served as the President of the Karnataka Cashew Manufacturers’ association and as the convenor of the First Ever Cashew Festival in India. Currently he is a member of the monitoring committee on Agro exports under the ministry of Agriculture, Govt. of India and the National convenor of the FIEO committee on Agro exports & AEZ.  While serving as the Govt. of India Nominee on the board of the New Mangalore Port, he was instrumental in the re-introduction of container traffic from New Mangalore Port, which has come as a great boon to the exporters from Karnataka.   The CEPCI looks forward to more innovative schemes and programmes under the leadership of  D’Souza during the 52nd year of its existence and beyond.