June 4, 2009

India's seafood exports are down 1.4 percent in US dollar terms to US$1.71 billion between April 2008 and February 2009 compared to the same time in the previous fiscal year.

The contribution of shrimp to the seafood export fund dropped to 44 percent this year against 51.82 percent in 2007-08, recorded 9.7 percent decline. India exported 113,353 tonnes of frozen shrimp against 125,515 tonnes during the same period last year.

The unit value realisation fell to US$3.22 per kilogramme during the period from US$3.52 per kilogramme in the previous corresponding period.

According to the latest provisional estimates by the Marine Products Export Development Authority (MPEDA), in terms of quantity of other leading seafood items like frozen fish, frozen cattle fish, frozen squid and dried items exports increased 7.9 percent to reach a level of 530,033 tonnes during the period.

The EU is the top market for Indian seafood, buying one-third of all exports, up 4 percent from the year earlier period, while Japan is the second biggest market with 14.9 percent of exports, with China third at 14 percent. US fell from second in the last fiscal year to fourth, accounting for 12 percent of Indian exports.

The main reasons for the set back, which MPEDA pointed out, were poor landings all along the Indian coast, poor aquaculture crops due to untimely rains and poor price offerings to the farmers, strengthening of rupee against the US dollar but no improvement in export prices, prevalence of uncertainty in the US market due to anti dumping issues and competition of low value vannamei shrimp from countries like China, Vietnam and Taiwan.