G. Mohan Kumar, chairman of India's Marine Products Export Development Authority (MPEDA), recently announced that the country's seafood exports for 2007-08 increased by 2.49 percent in U.S. dollars, exceeding $1.899 billion. Kumar says it was the fourth consecutive year that its seafood exports increased in value.
However, India's seafood exports have actually declined in local currency value and volume. In rupees, seafood export for the year of 2007-2008 dropped 8.9 percent, from last year's Rs 83.6 billion to Rs 76.2 billion.
The same goes to the real volume in seafood exports. The previous year, India exported 148,000 metric tons of seafood. This year, it only recorded 133,000 metric tons, which is down 11.6 percent. Significant increases in the price of frozen cuttlefish and squid have helped the revenue from shrinking as much as the volume.
Frozen seafood accounted for 83 percent of the country's seafood exports. From the total export, 52 percent was frozen shrimp, worth $980 million, followed by frozen fish with 17 percent worth $326 million.
