Gujarat makes giant strides in seafood exports .

Kochi April 28 Increasingly, frozen fish from Gujarat is becoming the mainstay on restaurant tables in countries of South- East Asia.

“Traditional Indian seafood delicacies such as seer fish, crocker, snapper and a large catch of leather jacket fish this year were sought after by Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong and China. Over and above their own catch, Indian seafood has begun to conquer the plates and palates of consumers in these countries,” Mr Kenny Thomas, Managing Director of Ginny Marine Trades, said.

The Gujarat-based seafood company, which is mainly into squid and cuttlefish exports to Europe, said that the catch from Gujarat coast has now become more diversified and seafood processing and freezing capacities have been built up to cater to the new-found export demand. The spurt in demand from South-East Asian countries and increased catches-for-export from the Gujarat coast has transformed Pipavav into the biggest port for seafood export in the country.

Value, volume

The port ranks number one not only in volume but also in value of seafood exports.

The rise of Pipavav as the prime port for seafood export also reflects the spatial spread in fishing operations across the country's coast along with the requisite infrastructure to process and freeze the large amount of catch coming into the fishing harbours.

The processing and freezing facilities set up in Gujarat are now almost as good as those found in Kerala, sources in the Seafood Exporters Association of India said.

Until a few decades back Kochi was the dominant port of export for seafood exports from the country and shrimp the most dominant item of export, which between them accounted for over 60 per cent of the value of exports. All that has now changed with the addition of squid, cuttlefish, frozen fish, live and chilled items into the basket of seafood exports from India.

Geographically seafood exports are now being exported from 17 ports spread across the West and East coasts. After Pipavav, Kochi, JNP, Chennai, Calcutta, Vizag and Tuticorin are some of the other prominent ports for seafood exports.

Marine spread

The seafood industry is also happy over the spread of marine exports to all the coastal regions in the country. The catch, which was previously restricted mainly to shrimp, cuttlefish and squid for exports, have now been further widened to include a whole array of marine species.

This has enabled better economic exploitation of the marine resources, providing full-time employment of people living along India's coastline. With lower congestion at individual ports, export logistics have also become easier for the industry.

The diversification of export basket and ports of export have benefited various States with Gujarat predominantly exporting squid and cuttlefish to Europe and frozen fish to South-East Asia. Squid, cuttlefish, shrimp are the major component of exports from Maharashtra. Kochi still exports shrimp, cuttlefish, squid and frozen fish.

Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and West Bengal are predominantly exporters of farmed shrimp from aquaculture ponds along with wild caught oceanic shrimps and some live exports to South-East Asia.

Source : Business Line