Seafood export rises 22% to nearly $7.1 billion in 2017-18

The US took the largest share of Indian seafood, at $2.3 billion or 32.8%

Seafood export rose 22 per cent to nearly $7.1 billion in 2017-18 as compared to $5.8 billion a year before. Frozen shrimp and frozen fish were the prime items. In terms of quantity it was nearly 1.38 million tonnes (mt), from 1.13 mt earlier.

“With policy support, we intend to achieve $10 billion by 2022,” said A Jayathilak, chairman of the Marine Products Export Development Authority.

The rise, he said was despite a surge in supply of shrimp from Ecuador, Argentina, Vietnam and Thailand, beside a drop in price. There were also issues on antibiotic residue in Indian shipments.

The US took the