Kochi: Volume growth in India’s prawn exports is expected to slow down to 7-10% in this calendar year after four years of robust growth, ratings agency ICRA said in a report.
The agency attributed the sluggishness to weak demand in the European and Japanese markets while demand from China and the US are expected to grow. During the period between 2013 and 2017, shrimp exports were up by 17% annually.
EU and Japan contributed 11.6% and 6.5% of the total exports during the first 10 months of fiscal 2018.
According to ICRA, Chinese prawn demand would be hurt by low domestic production growth, coupled with growing domestic prawn consumption. Any potential trade agreements between India and China are also expected to augur well for Indian prawn exports.
“The country derives almost 87% of its prawn export demand from the US, EU, China, Vietnam and Japan. The healthy growth in the past four years was attributed to weak production dynamics in other major prawn producing nations such as Thailand and Vietnam leading to strong uptick in demand for Indian prawn,” said Pavethra Ponniah, VP and sector head - corporate sector ratings, at ICRA.
In terms of key export volumes, the US has accounted for majority of India’s prawn exports, accounting for 38% of the total prawn exports in the first ten months of the calendar year 2018. This was driven by a steady increase in US demand due to lower production in disease-hit Thailand.
This was followed by strong exports growth to Vietnam and China, which overtook EU in the calendar year 2016 to become the second largest destination for Indian shrimp exports. The same was due to healthy demand for shrimp in China and weak domestic production.
“Going forward, Indian exporters face stiff competition from Ecuador, Indonesia and Vietnam. A strong uptick in major prawn production since CY2017 has intensified competition amongst leading global prawn exporting nations. ICRA expects increasing prawn production amongst the top prawn producing nations to cause demand supply mismatches inducing volatile in prices,” Ponniah added.
Source: timesofindia.indiatimes.com