India’s seafood exports are expected to fall sharply in this fiscal year due to lower global demand resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The decline in demand from major markets, including the United States and China, could see seafood exports from India go down by up to 25 percent in the current fiscal year from USD 6.68 billion (EUR 5.65 billion) in the last fiscal year, which ended on 31 March, according to Seafood Exporters Association of India (SEAI) National President Jagdish Fofandi.
The slump in exports in this fiscal year is likely to become worse than any previous forecast.
“We are anticipating a drop of 15 to 25 percent in exports in the current fiscal due to COVID and the aftereffects of stress harvesting, low breeding, and labor problems,” Fofandi told Financial Express. “The worry is the [sluggish] China market, which [has] virtually no buyers there now. If [the low demand for] silver pomfret is an indicator of things to come, we anticipate a 30 percent decline in exports to China itself.”
China buys about one-fifth of India’s total seafood exports.
Despite a decline in overall exports to the U.S., India has managed to boost sales to meet rising demand from the retail sector there, which gives them better margins.
Frozen shrimp remain the linchpin of the country’s seafood export economy, with the U.S. being India’s largest seafood buyer in the last fiscal year, followed by China.
Durai Murugan, the secretary of Shrimp Association of Pattukottai and managing director of New Diamond Aqua Enterprise, estimated that the exports of vannamei shrimp could slide by around 15 percent in this financial year as production is hit by the COVID-19 outbreak.
“Farmers made huge losses during the lockdown period. Many of them opting to start culture by 2021. White feces disease all over India prevailed heavily. Many farmers in recent crop also failed,” Murugan said.
Fofandi concurred that India’s domestic shrimp output may be down by 15 percent in this fiscal year. But he said lower production is likely to help balance supply and demand so prices should not fall farther.
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