Coronavirus unlikely to hit seafood export: MPEDA chairman

By Krishna Kumar

KOCHI: India’s seafood exports to China are not likely to have any adverse impact due to coronavirus, according to the Marine Products Export Development Authority (MPEDA).

“Seafood exports to China during April-December 2019 stood at 2,42,218 tons valued at US$ 1032 million as against 1,65,950 tons valued at US$ 589 million in the same period last year,” pointed out K S Srinivas, chairman of the MPEDA.


“The increase is 46 per cent in terms of quantity and 75 per cent in terms of value,” he noted.

Around 500 exporters are exporting seafood from India to China and the exporting community in general has not raised any issue about exports to that country on account of the coronavirus in that country, he said.

However few of them have expressed concern about shipping to China as the shrimp consumption might reduce. But there is a strong possibility of the Chinese consumers switching to healthier seafood options leaving behind other items such as reptiles of various kinds, he said in a statement.

At the just-concluded India International Seafood Show (IISS) 2020 in Kochi, Srinivas had said the Coronavirus outbreak had not affected the shrimp consumption in China where Wuhan, the epicentre of the disease, is a small province.

India is the second largest aquaculture producer in the world and the largest exporter of shrimp to USA. The country also exports a significant volume of shrimp to Europe and other markets in South East Asia.