To ensure continued demand for seafood from the European Union, India will showcase the new measures implemented by it to improve vigilance and testing to assure the bloc that all steps were being taken to ensure that consignments meet the required quality standards. The EU is one of India’s top buyers of shrimps.

“We are worried about the EU decision to increase testing of samples from 10 per cent to 50 per cent and blacklist exporters whose consignments fail quality tests. We have taken a number of important steps to improve vigilance and testing of seafood to stop faulty consignments at our end. Detailed presentation would be made by the Export Inspection Council (EIC) officials from India to their counterparts in the EU on these measures,” a government official told BusinessLine .

Information on the traceability software for seafood implemented by the country and new methods put in place to carry out inspections will be shared with the officials from Directorate General for Health and Food Safety (DG SANTE) which is responsible for the EU Commission’s policies on health and food safety.

“The meeting will take place during the global seafood show in Brussels later this month,” the official said. This is part of a routine exchange of information but this year it is more important for India to make a good impression as the EU has expressed its dissatisfaction with exports from India by tightening its rules on inspections and black-listing.

India’s marine food exporters have been arguing that the EU’s decision to increase the sample size from 10 per cent to 50 per cent for testing the seafood consignments from India, while keeping it at 10 per cent for other countries such as Vietnam and Bangladesh was unfair. They also want the EU to give a warning to an erring exporter whose consignment may have some quality related problem instead of banning the exporter outright.

“The EIC has discussed the two arguments with its counterpart in the EU earlier and will do so again,” the official said.

India’s marine exports increased to $6.12 billion in 2016-17, a 9.83 per cent increase from $5.57 billion in the previous year. The EU accounts for about 18 per cent of marine exports from the country with Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain being among the top buyers.

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