Kerala - Kochi   

‘Fish imports will not hit fish workers’

KOCHI: The talk of fish imports ruining Kerala’s marine fishery sector and throwing thousands of fish workers out of job is grossly exaggerated, according to Abraham J. Tharakan, president of Seafood Exporters Association of India.

Those crying foul at the imports have not understood the current realities of the international seafood market, Mr. Tharakan told The Hindu. They base their argument on the possibility of domestic fish prices crashing following the imports and thus wrecking fish workers’ incomes, he said.

Mr. Tharakan says this argument is baseless on several counts. First, the price of imported fish, even if the import is duty-free, would be too high for ordinary domestic consumers to afford. Second, many countries, particularly those in the European Union, are currently in short supply of fish to meet their own demands and hence they would not be able to export to India. Third, there is no zero-duty import; there are several other charges that would make the imports expensive.

He said that the recommendation of the Indo-E.U. negotiation meeting to keep eight categories of fish out of the ‘less sensitive list’ and putting them on the ‘sensitive list’ (so that they will not be imported duty-free) was just a ‘technical concession’ by the E.U. as the imports would not amount to much. Fish workers’ unions and the State government had opposed the duty-free import of fish from E.U. countries. Instead of pressing for including the eight categories in the ‘sensitive list,’ India should have negotiated for reducing the duty barrier on export of tuna to the E.U. countries. Indian tuna held a vast potential for exports, he said.

Mr. Tharakan said the total fish import by India last year was worth a mere Rs.89 crore — of which hilsa from Bangladesh constituted Rs.55 crore worth. This was against India’s seafood export of roughly Rs.8,000 crore. Again, he noted, the import from Thailand was for only Rs.14 lakh.

But, Mr. Tharakan, who is also the vice-chairman of the MPEDA, argued that the imports would help boost seafood exports from India as the imported fish would be used for re-export after reprocessing and value-addition.

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