Industry body FICCI has demanded fiscal incentives for the packaging industry, citing findings of its survey which says higher cost of packaging on account of costly raw material and higher duties was impacting the demand for processed foods.

The findings of the survey are based on the feedback received from 225 respondents from food processing, retail, packaging and packing machinery sectors.

The domestic packaging industry, which is worth $18.8 billion and growing at over 15% annually, is characterised by a large number of small players and only a few large players with national presence, according to FICCI.

The industry body has called for abolition of import duty on packaging machinery and reduction of duty on finished packaging material.