VISAKHAPATNAM: Visakhapatnam port stood top among major ports in the country in marine exports during the 2020-21 financial year. Vizag port has achieved 18.8 per cent of total exports and in terms of revenue, its share was 28.28 per cent.
The port handled 2.16 lakh tonnes of marine products worth Rs 12,362.71 crore. However, there was a 10.47 per cent decrease in exports when compared to 2019-20. The declining trend was mainly due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Krishnapatnam port, with 5.59 per cent of total exports and 8.61 per cent of revenue, stood fourth in the country.
Despite negative growth in marine exports, Andhra Pradesh stood first in volume of exports and revenue in the 2020-21 financial year. AP exported 2.79 lakh tonnes of marine products in the year and earned Rs 15,831.74 crore revenue. Of the total marine exports, 2.72 lakh tonnes were frozen shrimp and 3,942 tonnes of frozen fish.
The USA, China and Japan were the top three importers.However, the Covid pandemic and sluggish overseas markets cast shadow over the seafood sector as the country exported 11,49,341 MT of marine products worth Rs 43,717.26 crore (US$ 5.96 billion) during fiscal year 2020-21, registering a decline of 10.88 per cent compared to the last fiscal year.
Frozen shrimp contributed to 74.31 per cent of export revenue followed by frozen fish with 6.75 per cent.
“The pandemic drastically affected seafood exports during the first half of the year, but it revived in the last quarter of 2020-21. Also, the aquaculture sector performed better during this fiscal by contributing 67.99 per cent of exported items and 46.45 per cent in quantity, which is 4.41 per cent and 2.48 per cent higher, respectively, than those in 2019-20,” said K S Srinivas, Marine Products Export Development Authority (MPEDA) chairman.
The USA continued to be the largest importer of marine products with 41.15 per cent and China was a distant second with 15.77 per cent. He said several other factors impacted seafood exports during 2020-21.
There were reduced fish landings due to less number of fishing days, slow logistic movements and market uncertainties. Scarcity of workers in fishing and processing plants, paucity of containers at ports, increased air freight charges and limited flight availability affected exports, especially of high-value chilled and live products, he said.