Marine exports surged past the $2.5-billion-mark and touched a record $2.67 billion during 2010-11.
Despite a global economic slowdown, fluctuations in the value of the dollar and near collapse in the economies of some trade partners in Europe, marine exports was able to register a growth of 25 per cent in dollar realisations, 20 per cent growth in rupee earnings while recording over 10 per cent growth in volumes, according to provisional export figures released by the Marine Products Export Development Authority (MPEDA).
Strong growth in value realisations, which increased by 13 per cent, also aided performance of the marine export sector.
Impact of Recession
The MPEDA highlighted that the good performance notched up last fiscal was despite adverse global conditions. It highlighted the recession that had gripped global markets during a greater part of the year, the fact that the rupee had appreciated against major global currencies including the dollar and the collapse of the economies of Greece, Spain and Portugal that had caused the depreciation of the euro against the dollar, as some of the major constraints for growth. Some of these problems in the global markets were overcome through favourable developments at home like substantial increase in the export of frozen shrimp and frozen squid during the year. Also, large-scale production of Vannamei shrimp, which was able to penetrate the global markets at the high-count low-value end, while increased productivity of black tiger shrimp at the low-count high-value end also helped to neutralise some of the negative global impacts.
Frozen shrimp continued to be the major export item accounting for 46 per cent of the total foreign exchange earnings. Reflecting the overall increase in unit value realisation, shrimp exports grew by 41 per cent in dollar value, 35 per cent in rupee earnings and 13 per cent in volume. There was a major fillip in exports to the US. which increased by 83 per cent in volume and 140 per cent in dollar earnings. Shrimp exports to Japan also recovered and showed a growth of 17 per cent in volume and 43 per cent in value.
Frozen fish was the second highest component in the export basket, accounting for 39 per cent of the total quantity and 20 per cent of the value. There was steady growth in volume and value of frozen fish exports this year as well. Frozen squid exports showed a growth of 49 per cent in quantity and 74 per cent in value over last year, while cuttlefish exports declined by 12 per cent in quantity while realisations improved by 16 per cent.
Major Export markets
Despite a marginal decline of one per cent in quantum of exports, the European Union remained the largest export destination with a market share at 26 per cent while the US regained the second spot with 16 per cent along with South East Asia, which also accounted for 16 per cent. China with 15 per cent, Japan with 14 per cent and West Asia with 5 per cent were some of the other major export destinations. The most spectacular growth was reported in exports to the US, which grew by 104 per cent while quantity increased by 47 per cent.