Riding On A High Tide

India leads the world in terms of seafood exports and a little help from the government in terms of incentives, subsidies and removing export barriers can help in exploring new markets.

- Omer Ahmed Siddiqui

Many of the shrimps and fish served on platter in the US, Europe and some of the South East Asian restaurants find their origin from India. India is the second largest fish producer in the world and accounts for nearly 6 per cent of global fish production. But still India’s substantial fishery resources are said to be underutilized and there is tremendous potential to further increase the output. Fish production has grown 6.5 fold in the last two decades with freshwater aquaculture contributing over 95 per cent.

A few years back, in 2012-13, the South East Asian countries were the major Indian seafood export market (23 per cent) followed by European Union (21 per cent) and USA (21 per cent). However, in the recent years, the equation has changed with the US occupying the top notch followed by China, Europe and UAE. Ready to cook and ready to eat products are in greater demand in these markets. Seafood exports are also a major source of foreign exchange and the industry had remained unshaken even during the economic meltdown in 2004. Indian seafood exports are the best in quality as our standards are very high and we have the largest number of European Union approved factories in the world.

Exports

Indian exports have posted a continuous growth in the past five years with Vannamei posting a growth of 23 per cent last year. While seafood exports happen through most of the ports in India, not every port has an up-to-date infrastructure for handling reefer cargo. “The ports in Odisha do not have reefer facility and so we have to divert our exports to Vizag and Kolkata ports. Even at these ports it takes about five weeks for exporting cargo to distant markets such as the US. To expedite exports ports need to start express services that can transport reefer cargo to distant markets in a shorter time,” avers Tara Patnaik, Chairman, Falcon Marine Exports.