India keen to join Asean seafood exporters’ group.

“We are definitely interested in joining the group since it will give us access to better technology, food safety assurance, logistics and marketing.

And, when India and China join the group, it could become quite a powerful force accounting for 70-75 per cent of global seafood production”, Mr Anwar Hashim, President of SEAI, pointed out.

Though it was formed mainly as a private producers and processors group, the ASEAN Seafood Federation has all the blessings of the ASEAN secretariat and the signing of the new Federation was witnessed by the Secretary General of ASEAN in Thailand last May, Mr Anwar Hashim added.

The founding members and signatories of the new federation were the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and Myanmar.

Main objectives

The group already claims to account for close to 50 per cent of the global seafood production.

The new grouping is also expected to reduce inter-country rivalry and fishing conflicts in the region while ensuring better production standards.

Closer cooperation in production and marketing by the Asian countries could impart greater clout and control over the global markets.

Right now, it is a buyers market and the importing countries are calling the shots; instead, there should be more balanced markets where the legitimate grievances of the producing countries are also heard and addressed, sources in the industry pointed out.

Fishermen woes

They also highlighted that for fishermen of developing countries such as India, fishing is mainly for basic survival while for fishermen in Europe and the US, it is quite often a business proposition. Consequently, they said that fishermen of poorer countries should not be equated with those from rich nations.

While acknowledging the need for regulating unreported and illegal fishing, the sources said that it should not be at the cost of the artisan fishermen from countries such as India whose basic needs such as food and clothing are dependent on fishing.

In this context, they highlighted that traditional fishermen fishing in India’s territorial waters should be exempt from the new catch certification norms brought out by the EU.

Instead, these norms should be strictly enforced in international waters where there is less accountability and where it is mainly the big factory ships that operate.

Tough times

They also acknowledged that it is very difficult for developing countries to fight lone battles against powerful developed countries and pointed that when India joined hands with Thailand against the imposition of anti-dumping duties by the US, it was quite successful.

Mr Anwar Hashim said that India’s joining hands with the ASEAN countries would impart better cooperation in the fields of quality standardisation, inspection and certification, labeling and packaging.

It would also help the member countries to share trade and market information, thereby generating better understanding of the regional production and consumption trends.