Winning Bizness Desk
India world's 4rth importer
Mumbai. Qatar has taken a big decision regarding the import of seafood by lifting the ban on seafood imports from India. This has now paved the way for seafood exports from India to Qatar. Now there is a possibility of a big increase in exports. This will help improve India's bilateral relations with West Asian countries. According to the experts, this will improve relations between the two countries. In November last year, the Vibrio cholera virus was detected in some consignments sent from India ahead of the FIFA World Cup. After that, Qatar had banned the import of seafood. In the run-up to the football tournament, Qatari authorities had informed India that the temporary ban was imposed due to a lack of adequate testing laboratories in their country. Now again the way to export seafood from India to Qatar has been cleared.
Government of India made efforts
Continuous efforts were made by the Government of India through the Ministry of Commerce Department along with the Embassy of India in Qatar to pave the way for the export of seafood. There were several rounds of discussions with Qatar's Ministry of Public Health. Subsequently, it has been decided to lift the ban on frozen seafood imports from India on February 16. So now seafood can be exported.
Rs 90 crore turnover
According to the information received, during the current financial year seafood exports to the West Asian country were around Rs 90 crore. In this, the export of shrimp has been the highest. China has also lifted the suspension of shipments to 99 Indian seafood processing and export units. Hence, seafood exports are expected to cross 8 billion in the current financial year. In the financial year 2021-22, India exported 13,69,264 tonnes of marine products worth $7.76 billion (Rs 575.86 billion). This is considered to be the highest export ever. Talking about prawns, during this period the production of prawns in India crossed one million metric tonnes.
