Export potential, opportunities and challenges faced by selected marine products exported from India

Abstract

India is a competitive exporter of frozen shrimp and prawns across the globe due to its low labour cost and the scale of economy it has managed to achieve by becoming one of the world’s largest producers of farmed shrimp and prawns. It is expected that the established capacities of hatcheries, feed mills and processing plants will support future expansion significantly. As compare to the leading producers and exporters of shrimp and prawns in the Asian continent, India is known to be a low-density producer, there is a scope to increase productivity, with a standard of about 40 shrimp/prawns per square meter. Indian farmers are highly interested in producing bigger shrimp and prawns, especially that of black tiger shrimp, for increasing production and profitability. But, producing bigger size shrimp and prawns along with suitable survival rate is a herculean task, needing the attention of brood stock producers as well as farm managers to have holistic management of the farms and prevent diseases via integrated management.