Union Minister for Urban Development M Venkaiah Naidu today said India is the 7th largest exporter of sea-food behind China, Norway, Vietnam, Thailand, United States and Chile.
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The US and South East Asia are the major importers of Indian seafood and frozen shrimp continued to be the major export item past year, followed by frozen fish.
He said of the United States dollars 4.5 billion exports, Andhra Pradesh’s share stood at 40 per cent, becoming the leading exporter in the country.
Visakhapatnam, Sep 22 (PTI) Country aims to improve its export turnover from marine products to Dollars 10 billion by the year 2020 through promoting safe and sustainable aquaculture, Chairman of Marine Products Export Development Authority (MPEDA) A Jayathilak said here today. Addressing a media conference on the eve of the inaugural session of the three-day 20th India International Seafood Show 2016 in the city on Thursday, Jayathilak said sustainable methods of fishing and aquaculture production through diversification particularly of L Vannemei will aid this growth.
The nodal body for marine exports, MPEDA is answerable to the Union Commerce and Industry Ministry.
The upcoming biennial India International Seafood Show (IISS) on September 23-25 in Vishakhapatnam, therefore, will focus on “Safe and Sustainable Indian Aquaculture” and underscore the technological advances and sustainable practices applied in capture & culture fisheries in India, to ensure quality of seafood produced for both domestic and export market.
“The scope of MEIS was Rs 22,000 crore annually. The Invest India Cell has also been receiving enquiries and quite a few investments will happen in value addition (of marine products)”, the Union Minister said.
“I held discussions with trade ministers from Japan and South Korea recently and they have expressed interest in collaborating with India for development of aquaculture”, she added.
Expressing his government?s determination to make Andhra Pradesh the “aquaculture hub” of the world, Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu said that the state accounted for over 45 per cent of India’s cultured shrimp exports during 2015-16.
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In his introductory remarks, A Jayathilak, Chairman, MPEDA, said India’s seafood industry, which witnessed a dip of 10 per cent last year had now shown an increase of 10 per cent this year, despite a global recession.
