January 26, 2005

India's eyes processing of seafood imports

The Seafood Exports Association of India (SEAI) today clarified that India's proposal to import seafood from Thailand, under a bilateral free trade agreement, was meant to utilise the country's excess processing capacity, thus providing employment and enhancing foreign exchange earnings.

In a statement here, SEAI President A J Tharakan said India was presently able to make use of only 20 percent of its processing capacity, providing hardly 100 days of employment to its estimated 1.50 lakh workers, mainly because of shortage of raw materials.

The proposed seafood import from Thailand would help the country better its foreign exchange through exports of more value-added seafood items in the years ahead, he said.

As imported raw material would be processed and exported as value-added food, Mr Tharakan said fears that Thai fish imports would replace domestic fish were unfounded.

Thailand, he said, was a major importer of seafood from various countries including India. This was being re-exported by that country after processing and has surpassed India in terms of foreign exchange earnings from this sector over recent years, he explained.