Hopes of Indian seafood traders revive on recovery

As problems continue to persist, Seafood Exporters Association of India (SEAI) president Anwar Hashim said that early signs of economic revival and decreasing rates of anti-dumping duty hold promise for Indian shrimp exports to the US.

This fall was despite the total US shrimp imports rising from US$3.76 billion to US$4.09 billion during the same period.

The position of the US fell further to just 7% of the Indian seafood exports by volume and 13% by foreign exchange earnings.

And even this position was further undermined as the value of exports to the US fell sharply to seven per cent according to the figures available for the first six months of the current fiscal.

Now that the anti-dumping duty has hit 0.79% from the levels of 10.17%, the trade felt that exports could rise.

According to Hashim, almost 40% of the farmers who had been cultivating black tiger along the farms of the Andhra coast gave up on aquaculture farming. The recurrent disease outbreaks, anti-dumping duty on Indian shrimp exports to the US and invasion of cheaper vannamei shrimp cultivated by other Southeast Asian countries in export markets were the primary cause for the farmers' withdrawal from shrimp aquaculture. In addition, production of farmed shrimp fell sharply during the recent past.

Notwithstanding the low duty rates and early signs of economic recovery, major impediments still remain for shrimp exports to the US. Cheaper vannamei shrimp imports from competing Southeast Asian countries are now flooding the US supermarkets. The high-count low priced competition has found favour with the US consumer during the recessionary period.