India - More fish exports with less traders.

Despite increase of India’s seafood export over 30% during the last five years, Seafood Exporters Association of India (SEAI) said that the number of seafood processing units and exporters has shrunk 70%.

It is learnt that nearly 1700 seafood processing and exporting units functioned five years ago, their numbers have fallen to around 500 currently. Even among the 500 registered units, only about 100 are active.

“There are hardly any merchant exporters in the marine exports sector today, given the strict regulations and bonds that they have to execute. Also, several of the fly-by-night operators who had no long-term commitment have vanished from the scene,” sources in SEAI told reporters.

Huge amounts are required for upgrading quality standards from the raw material stage to processing, packaging and exports for the industry to record consistent growth. Processors and exporters without long-term commitment harmed the industry by sending sub-standard products, which often invited rejections and bad name for the country.

With regulations and quality controls imposed by importing countries rising, the number of rejections has gone up in recent years. For exports to destinations such as the US, imposition of anti-dumping duties on shrimp resulted in only players with deep pockets being able to stay in business. Even their finances were stretched with a corpus of US$50 million outstanding as bonds with the US Customs and Border Police.

The need to raise fresh capital for day-to-day operations, while such huge outstanding amounts remained due, forced most of the smaller players out of the once lucrative US market. But there are several positive features to this consolidation in the seafood export industry, sources in SEAI pointed out.

SEAI sources point out that with the enactment of the catch certification, another rung in the operational chain, procurement, will also get into the verification and authentication regime.

These factors have enabled the seafood industry to rise up the value chain as far as global quality and standards are concerned. The active players left today have invested substantial capital and can be considered long-term players, sources said.