Increasingly, frozen fish from Gujarat India such as seer fish, crocker, snapper and a large catch of leather jacket fish were sought after by Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong and China this year according to Kenny Thomas, managing director of Ginny Marine Trades.

The Gujarat-based seafood company, which is mainly into squid and cuttlefish exports to Europe, said that the catch from Gujarat coast has now become more diversified and seafood processing and freezing capacities have been built up to cater to the new-found export demand. The spurt in demand from South-East Asian countries and increased catches-for-export from the Gujarat coast has made Pipavav into the biggest port having the highest volume and value of seafood exports in the country.

Until a few decades back, Kochi was the dominant port for seafood exports from the country and shrimp the most dominant item of export. At present, there has been the addition of squid, cuttlefish, frozen fish, live and chilled items.

Geographically seafood exports are now being exported from 17 ports spread across the West and East coasts. After Pipavav, Kochi, JNP, Chennai, Calcutta, Vizag and Tuticorin are some of the other prominent ports for seafood exports.

Squid, cuttlefish and shrimp are the major export component from Maharashtra whereas Kochi still exports shrimp, cuttlefish, squid and frozen fish.