The Asean Seafood Federation, a regional grouping of seafood producers, processors and exporters from the countries of the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean), has invited the Seafood Exporters Association of India (SEAI) to join the newly for med 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% of global seafood production," Anwar Hashim, president, SEAI, pointed out, according to a report in Business Line.
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, Hashim added. The founding members and signatories of the new Federation were the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and Myanmar. The group already claims to account for 50% of the global seafood production.
Right now seafood 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, according to sources in the industry.
Hashim said that India's joining hands with the Asean countries would impart better cooperation in the fields of quality standardization, inspection and certification, labelling and packaging.
Source : fnbnews.com