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To revitalise India’s fisheries sector, govt to launch Blue Revolution
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Saturday, 22 November, 2014, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
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Our Bureau, New Delhi
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fiogf49gjkf0d The government of India, with a renewed focus on the fisheries sector, is set to launch the Blue Revolution to revitalise the industry.
Drawing from the success of the Green Revolution, the envisaged Blue Revolution has the potential to enhance productivity, improve breeding and feeding practices as well as improve human resource training.
This focus on aquaculture is also timely, as the country is currently struggling with inflation of protein-rich food items.
India is the second-largest player in the global fisheries sector; producing around 90.4 lakh metric tonnes of fishery-based resources annually.
Exports from the fisheries sector reached an all-time high of $5 billion in 2013-14, illustrating its high potential in contributing to India’s trade economy.
The sector contributes about one per cent of India’s gross domestic product (GDP) and about 4.6 per cent to the agricultural GDP, and employs nearly 14 million people.
The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) recommended the following measures to be a part of the Blue Revolution for the sustainable development of the sector:
- Immediate impetus to address infrastructure bottlenecks such as upgrading and planning fishing harbours, integrated export-oriented processing clusters and countrywide domestic fish marketing infrastructure;
- Updating food safety protocols to meet global quality specifications, thereby mitigating export rejections and ensuring regular trade and livelihood for fishermen;
- Skill development and training activities to be undertaken for ornamental fish culture, deep sea fishing and marine aquaculture activities, in an effort to create additional employment opportunities;
- The introduction of the new exotic shrimp variety, Lvannamei, has brought new dynamism to the fish processing industry. Frozen shrimp contributes to more than 64 per cent of the total Indian marine export earnings. More domestically-cultured species need to be introduced at regular intervals by the scientific community to benefit farmers and provide momentum to the aquaculture sector in India, and
- Overhauling the processing industry to export value-added products, thereby increasing the per-unit export value
Indo-US agreement
In a major breakthrough, India and the United States have reached an agreement to resolve their differences over food subsidy, indicating an end to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) impasse and paving the way for implementation of the Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA).
ASSOCHAM applauded the efforts of the government to secure the agreement with an indefinite peace clause, until a permanent agreement is reached.
This would ensure that the country’s food security programme, which acts as a safety net for approximately 2/3rd of India’s population, would remain immune to WTO rules.
ASSOCHAM believed that the agreement, once implemented, would provide the following benefits to India and the global economy:
- The TFA could add $1 trillion to the world economy and boost global economic growth, reduce costs and increase trade both on exports and imports side. In our view, the TFA could help to increase India’s share in global trade much higher from the current two per cent;
- A developing country like India stands to gain most from efficient procedures, as it would enjoy higher revenue collections from increased trade volumes and improve the efficiency of its customs administration. As per the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the cumulative impact of trade facilitation improvement would be greater than a simple sum of individual measures, and the reduction in trade cost is estimated to be highest for lower middle-income countries (like India) to the tune of 15.5 per cent as compared to the 14.5 per cent reduction in total trade costs for low-income countries and the 13.2 per cent for upper middle-income countries;
- In particular, the trade facilitation agreement, coupled with the peace clause, would not only expand trade, but would also help in achieving development goals of reducing hunger, creating more jobs and income opportunities in developing countries, leading to the realisation of overarching goal of economic security, and
- ASSOCHAM feels that the trade facilitation measure would substantially reduce the transaction cost for Indian exporters which range between 19 and 22 per cent (as compared to 2-3 per cent for exporters in the developed world). In order to fully actualise the benefits from trade facilitation, ASSOCHAM believes that efforts must focus on creating a fostering environment for micro-, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSME), given that they contribute nearly 40 per cent to India’s exports and account for 45 per cent of the manufacturing output
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