AVANTI FEEDS SEES CENTRE’S BLUE REVOLUTION BOOSTING BIZ

Avanti Feeds Ltd, one of India's biggest exporters of seafood, says the government's ambitious plan to promote fisheries will boost its business.

The Hyderabad-based company, in which Thai Union Group Pcl holds a

24 per cent stake, recommends farmers should group together to benefit from the scale of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's promised investment. The so-called blue revolution has an outlay of about Rs 20,000 crore

($2.7 billion) on infrastructure, including cold storage and processing facilities, and Modi on Thursday rolled out an app for farmers to get market information.

"Ultimately, the backbone of this industry is the farmer, if you support him, everything will grow," Avanti Feeds's joint managing director C. Ramachandra Rao said on a call with analysts late Wednesday.

The programme is part of Modi's stimulus to revive the economy from a coronavirus-induced slump. It aims to more than double per capita consumption of fish in India to 12 kg by March 2025, and targets to generate about 5.5 million jobs.

Avanti Feeds, which exports more than twothirds of its shrimps to the US, is looking for supply contracts with other countries, including China. For the three months through June, about 26 per cent of its exports were to Asian countries, with China being the major destination.

"We are working with Chinese importers to develop value-added products," Alluri Nikhilesh, executive director at the company's frozen foods units, said on the call. "China can become a dominant importer in the next few years."