Sea
food exports decline
Our
Corporate Bureau
10 August 2004
Kochi:
Sea food exports from the country declined during this
fiscal according to Marine Products Export Development
Authority (MPDEA) .Fiscal 2003-04 turned out to be a
lacklustre year for the domestic seafood industry as
the exports declined by 11.83 per cent in quantity and
11.47 per cent in value terms from the previous year.
During
2003-04, seafood exports touched $1.33 billion as against
$1.42 billion in 2002-03, while the quantity dropped
to 412,000 tonnes from 467,000 tonnes in the same period.
Stung
by the imposition of anti-dumping duty by the US on
all imports, India's multibillion-dollar seafood industry
is now hoping that the government would unveil a favourable
export-import (Exim) policy.
The
industry hopes that rules would be relaxed in the Exim
policy, likely to be unveiled this month, for allowing
import of seafood products into India for value-addition
and then for re-export.
"In
the wake of the anti-dumping duty imposed on all seafood
exports to the US, we are now diverting our attention
to make India a processing hub," said Abraham Tharakan,
president of the Seafood Exporters Association of India
(SEAI).
He
said that the seafood industry currently faces a slew
of procedural problems and the processing of papers
is too cumbersome. "We hope that at least this
time the central government would be more considerate
to us because our proposal for this has been lying with
them for almost two years now.
There
is tremendous scope in this sector," he said. "Once
the present rules of import of seafood are changed,
European fishing liners could come directly to any port
in India with their catch which could be transferred
to any of the seafood processing factories."
India
has more than 200 seafood-processing factories of international
standards and all these plants operate at just 15 per
cent of their capacity.
"Kerala
has the highest number with more than 40 per cent of
the factories, followed by Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu
and Gujarat," said Tharakan.
"Our
peak season is limited to just four months after the
monsoon and after that most factories remain idle. Moreover,
we have the required labour force also for processing,"
he added.
"I
am certain that this industry will not have to look
anywhere else if there is a favourable Exim policy.
As always, we are keeping our fingers crossed,"
said Tharakan.
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