Frozen fish export from India continue to see astounding growth

An astounding growth of 9.03% in USD terms has been witnessed during FY 2017-18 in the export of frozen fish – the second largest seafood export item from India – which contributed 25.64% in quantity and 10.35% in earnings out of the overall seafood export from India. This figure was released by Department of Commerce, Government of India recently. India presently has 1369 registered exporters of seafood with 547 Processing Plants having installed capacity to process 27300 MT seafood in a day.

FY 2016-17 had seen 23 per cent jump over previous year figure of $4.69 billion worth of export of frozen shrimp and fish. India had exported 11,34,948 tonnes of seafood in last fiscal worth $5.78 billion (Rs. 37,870.90 crore).

Frozen Fish is the 160^th most traded product and the 726^th most complex product according to the Product Complexity Index (PCI).

Whole frozen fish represents big business, given that worldwide sales from frozen fish exports by various countries totaled US$23.7 billion in 2017. Overall, the value of frozen fish exports rose by an average 2.2% for all exporting countries since 2013 while frozen fish shipments were valued at $23.2 billion.

Among continents, European countries accounted for the highest dollar value worth of frozen fish exports during 2017 with shipments amounting to $8 billion or about a third (33.7%) of the global total. This was followed in the second place by Asia at 32.5% followed by North American exporters via their 11.2% share of frozen fish international sales.

Latin America (excluding Mexico) and the Caribbean generated a 10% share, followed by 5.9% for Africa and then 4.9% for Oceania nations led by New Zealand and Papua New Guinea.

During the last year, India was at 10^th place out of the countries that exported the highest dollar value worth of frozen fish. India’s exports amounted to $581.1 million which was 2.5% of total exported frozen fish. But China continued to remain at top position with exporting US$2.7 billion worth of frozen fish (11.6% of total exported frozen fish). This was followed by the United States, Russia, Chile, Norway, Taiwan, Netherlands, Spain and South Korea. India was followed by Japan at 11^th place and then Denmark, Indonesia, Greenland and Faroe Islands. Among these, Denmark, Netherland and Faroe Islands have are seeing the highest rise in exports.

Japan ($3.31billion), China ($2.88billion), South Korea ($1.41 billion), Spain ($866million) and the United States ($734million) were the leading importers of frozen fish.

United States and South East Asian countries continued to remain biggest importers of frozen fish. However, steady rise was seen from European Union as well.

India chiefly exports frozen shrimp, L. Vannamei (whiteleg shrimp), Black Tiger shrimp and fish to the world.

Increased production of L. Vannamei (whiteleg shrimp), diversification of aquaculture species, sustained measures to ensure quality and increase in infrastructure facilities for production of value-added products have been primarily responsible for India’s positive growth in seafood exports.