Jan 5, 2021
The Pandemic lockdown has decreased the domestic appetite for seafood as it weakened the demand in the HoReCa sector.
Considering both, the medium-to-long term, fish production in India is bound to improve drastically on account of increased aquaculture production in all the variants.
In the current fiscal year 2021, restrained demand in both domestic and export markets will trim 25-30 percent of the revenue of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that account for nearly 80 percent of the seafood industry in India. Though domestic demand for seafood saw a diminishing stand, households too took the second which also cut down the consumption with the fear of attracting and transmission of covid-19.
The export demand plunged as the top 15 countries that have been severely impacted by Covid-19, including Italy, Spain, UK, Russia, the USA, account for about 65 percent of India’s seafood export fish market.What seems promising here is that, the seafood industry is anticipated to reverberate in the next fiscal year (FY22), with about 12 percent growth in revenue. The exports are also expected to see an uptick with demand growth, there seems to be an increasing competition from Thailand, Vietnam, and Ecuador that is likely to affect the exports.