US eases rules for Indian seafood export

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the USA has issued a list of 140-odd Indian seafood exporting entities to be excluded from that country's restrictive 'Detention Without Physical Examination (DWPE)' ambit.

US import in 2016-17 was 1,88,617 tonnes of Indian seafood, amounting to $5.8 billion or nearly Rs 38,000 crore, about 22.7 per cent more in quantity over the previous year and 30 per cent in dollars.

"The names of exporters in the list are exempted from detention but are subject to random examination by the US authorities and the list is revised from time to time," said the spokesman of a large exporting company.

"Districts may detain, without physical examination, all fresh (raw), fresh frozen, and cooked shrimp from India, except shipments from those firms listed as exempt in the Green List to this alert," the FDA said.

This positive development for Indian entities comes when the American Shrimp Processors Association has named India, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Mexico, China and Malaysia among 13 countries with which the US ran a significant overall shrimp trade deficit in 2016.

Similarly, the International Trade Commission of the US government had unanimously voted to extend the current anti-dumping orders on shrimp coming from China, India, Thailand and Vietnam for an additional five years, to save their domestic industry.

The latest move, says the Indian industry, shows the US is satisfied with the testing mechanism and food standards maintained by our shrimp exporters. It has come at a time when the European Union, another key market, has enhanced the norm of testing of samples to at least 50 per cent of the consignments from 10 per cent earlier, said an exporter.