Deceber 5, 2003

India Seafood Association Requesting Government To Disapprove Fishing Venture With Thailand

The Seafood Exporters Association of India has requested the government not to approve the proposed joint venture projects between Indian and Thailand-based companies to operate large and medium fishing vessels in the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of the country's coastline.

Reacting to reports in a section of the press that the ministry of agriculture is contemplating permitting such joint ventures the association has taken the view that if "such large deep sea fishing vessels from Thailand are allowed to operate in our waters there will be almost total depletion ..... of whatever seafood re sources we have".

In a letter to Rajnath Singh, Union minister for agriculture and Arun Jaitely, minister for commerce and industry the association president AJ Tharakan pointed out that Thailand's fishing vessels have a reputation for employing fishing methods that virtually scrape the bottom of the ocean with scant respect for any form of conservation.

The Indian seafood factories already have surplus processing capacity. Besides there has been a sharp drop in catches both from deep sea and coastal resources in the last 4 years due to lack of focused conservation policy.

The Thai vessels will fish in Indian waters and take the catch to Thailand factories for processing, value addition and export, the Mr Tharakan said. "Consequently permitting these vessels to operate in our EEZ for sourcing raw material for overseas factories is against out national interest," he added. Since India has got world-class factories, competitively priced skilled labour and sustainable raw material resources the industry is trying to make India an international seafood processing centre.

Permitting foreign vessels to operate in Indian waters and take away raw material from here will only destroy the inter national competitive advantage of domestic companies, the association spokesman said in the letter.

The association has asked the ministers to intervene in the matter and ensure that the proposed joint fishing venture with Thailand in Indian EEZ for sourcing raw material for overseas factories is abandoned.