August 2, 2010

Pakistan's seafood exports show decrease

The country's seafood export has suffered a decrease of over 11% during the fiscal year 2009-10 to 113.219 tonnes as compared to the seafood export of 127.393 tonnes in the fiscal year 2008-09, according to official statistics.

Pakistan's seafood export has failed to surpass last fiscal year's export mark of US$233 million mainly because of a shortage in fish and shrimps catching, said exporters.

The country's seafood export failed to surge in the last fiscal year and remained at 227.285 tonnes, much below the corresponding fiscal year's export of US$233.692, posting a slump of US$6.407 million. "During the last fiscal year, due to government's bad policies, the country suffered around US$75 million loss in the export of seafood because of a shortage of raw material," said chairman of Pakistan Fisheries Exporters Association, Faisal Iftikhar.

He blamed the government for not implementing the laws strictly regarding fisheries, which gave some fishermen a chance to net unauthorised catch that lead to an unwanted increase in the seafood catch. Faisal said, "The catch of juvenile pomfret is being sold in the market for PKR12 (US$0.14) per kg, whereas the big sized pomfret fetches around PKR1200 (US$14.06) per kg in the same market."

He said the country's seafood export faces around seven million tonnes shortfall annually because of an ever-rising catch of trash fish and undersized shrimps at the harbour. He also said the country's seafood export could have reached near US$300 million mark during the last fiscal year, if the issue of a shortage of raw material was addressed duly.

He said the government's lenient stance, regarding a ban on fishing in the months of June and July, has given the fishermen latitude to fish throughout the year without any fear. Faisal pointed out the country's seafood export sector had fetched a historic high of US$2 per unit price for seafood products this year.

Regarding the EU's ban on Pakistan's seafood products, he said the ban would have a negative impact on the country's seafood export. On a monthly differential basis, the seafood export during June 2010 has declined by 38% to 9,830 tonnes as compared to the seafood export of 15,752 tonnes in May 2010, showing a decrease of 5,922 tonnes.