April 5, 2010

Indian seafood exports soar 11%

India's seafood exports rose 11% to IDR8,083.82 crore (US$1.81 billion) during the first 10 months of the current fiscal, despite global economic recession leading to lower consumption of high-end seafood products, according to reports.

There were also problems such as anti-dumping duties imposed by the US on shrimp imports from India, export rejections on some seafood consignment to the EU on quality concerns and problems with the Japanese markets.

Despite the adverse global economic challenges and India-specific problems, the volume of seafood exports grew 4% to 531,000 tonnes during April-January 2009-10. Export earnings have increased by over 4% to US$1.704 billion.

Shrimp exports continued to dominate seafood exports and accounted for 44% of the total volume. However, shrimp volumes have been coming down over the years and accounted for 44% of the total realisation in foreign exchange earnings.

Close to 40% of the total volume of exports was contributed by frozen fish. Although there was no significant growth in volumes on a year-on-year basis, the value realisation has moved up close to 10%. The bulk of the frozen fish, especially low-value fishes such as ribbon, have been exported to China in recent years.

Frozen cuttlefish and squid have been major exports to the EU. While there is a growth in cuttlefish exports by almost 10% in value, squid exports dropped by 12% in volume and 20% in value.

Dried seafood items have almost doubled in volume during the first 10 months of the fiscal although the total realisation has not grown correspondingly. Meanwhile, exports of live items have been flourishing to the neighbouring South-East Asian countries, increasing both in volume and value over last year.

The EU remains the most dominant export destination accounting for 30% of India’s exports values followed by Japan and South-East Asia, each makes up 13% of the total export.