(IntraFish) Pakistan&rsquo s seafood
Seafood exports are up by 13.5 percent to $28.6 million, with a 5 percent growth in volume for the first five months of the current financial year 2011-12, the Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS) said. Pakistan has not been able to resume seafood exports to the EU since 2007 despite local authorities’ efforts to meet EU requirements.
A report by Marine Fishing Department (MFD) showed that the country’s exports had met majority of the EU standards, but no action has been taken so far by the EU to lift the ban. Because of the ban, Pakistan has looked to new Asian markets for its seafood exports such as Bangladesh, Brunei, China, Egypt, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Iran, Lebanon, Malaysia, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Thailand etc.
According to the government, a number of initiatives are under way to further increase the export of fish and fish preparation. This includes the expansion of existing laboratory infrastructure to provide testing and certification facilities acceptable to destination markets and financial support to revamp fish jetties. In addition, packaging and marketing of fish and developing seafood-based industries like extraction of fish oil need to be improved as well.