Seafood exporters upbeat about UK after Brexit

Indian seafood exporters are upbeat about exporting to the UK after it parts ways with the European Union (EU).

The EU has initiated steps to treat the UK as a third country.

In a recent note to stakeholders, the EU explained that the UK will have to be considered a non-EU country and that the island nation need to have systems in place that satisfy the EU’s requirements if it is to export to the region.

“Subject to any transitional arrangement that may be contained in a possible withdrawal agreement, as of the withdrawal date (30 March 2019), EU food law no longer applies to the United Kingdom,” EU said to its stakeholders.

“Given that India is a major supplier of shrimp to the UK, I believe separate UK food regulations will be more pragmatic and aligned with mutual trade interests, as opposed to the current stance of EU authorities, which we feel is unfair and unfortunate,” said Aditya Dash, managing director, Ram’s Assorted Cold Storage, a leading exporting company based in Odisha.

In 2016, the EU had strengthened its inspection norms for aquaculture products sent from India. Earlier, the norm was testing samples from at least 10 per cent of the consignments, which was enhanced to 50 per cent in 2016.

Exporters of this perishable item were in a tizzy after a twomember team visited select seafood processing facilities in Odisha and Tamil Nadu, the leading exporting states, for about 10 days in November.

They also visited fishing harbours in Paradip and also the processing units of Falcon Marine Exports and Shimpo Seafoods in Bhubaneswar. The audit team also met officials from the Union commerce ministry and the Marine Products Export Development Authority (MPEDA).

Recently, Indian authorities had urged the EU not to ban or

blacklist any seafood exporter immediately after finding problems with just one consignment as this worked against the interests of all stakeholders.