MANGALORE: Despite the country being one of the top exporters of fish to both United States and European Union (EU) it is unable to improve the foreign exchange earning owing to inability to add value to the export items, said experts at a national workshop on value added fishery products which began here today.

The workshop was organised by the Marine Products Export Development Authority (MPEDA) in association with INFOFISH, a multi-government organisation. Inaugurating the workshop, director of MPEDA Vishnu Bhat said the country exported fish valued at Rs. 7000 crore a year but the value could be much more if the industry was able to add value to the fish catch of the country. At present the forex earned by the country through value added products in fisheries sector was negligible when compared with the financial gains of the smaller countries in South East Asia, he said.

Mr. Bhat said MPEDA had unveiled a vision document for 2010 and 2015 where the foreign exchange earned from fishery exports should go up from 1.6 billion $ (2005) to 4 billion $ in 2010 and 6 billion $ in 2015.

He said much was dependant on the policy incentive and investment and development of infrastructure in the fisheries sector in the 11th plan. MPEDA has also identified thrust areas such as production through aquaculture, better management of capture fishery and value addition.

Joint Director of State fisheries and Managing Director of the Karnataka Fisheries Development Corporation V.K. Shetty said the system should also introduce technology to produce custom-made products to cater to different markets. He said the demand for the value-added products would not decline.

Co-ordinator of INFOFISH V K. Dey said the world was becoming conscious about the health hazards in food particularly seafood. Food safety aspects should be given more importance and risk assessment and ability to trace the pathogens should become order of the day in fisheries.

The importers in EU and US are highly conscious about the anti-biotic residues, which the industry had to find ways and methods to eliminate through research, he said.

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