Seafood exports from Pakistan are recording a boost due to several factors that play in their favour: increasing demand from China and Vietnam as well as the expiration of the six-year-old import ban on Pakistani seafood by the European Union (EU).
It is expected that this reintroduction of seafood exports from Pakistan to the European bloc market and the increasing global demand for frozen fish and crustaceans like shrimp and lobster will significantly increase the country's seafood exports in subsequent years.
According to an exporter from Karachi, exports of salted, dried and smoked fish to China are growing "by leaps and bounds."
In his opinion, if exporters tap the potential cleverly, the sales to China alone could generate USD 60 million during this fiscal year, an equal amount can come from Vietnam, where lots of frozen fish as well as shrimp and lobsters, are sent.
Sales of fish and fish-related products from Pakistan have gone up by 34.34 per cent during this financial year compared to the same period in 2012.
For the July-September period corresponding to 2013-14, the total of fish exports reached USD 85.2 million, compared with the USD 63.4 million recorded for the same period for the 2012-2013 fiscal year, official reports from the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) show.
For the three months analysed, Pakistan exported 36,273 metric tonnes as opposed to 27,174 metric tonnes for the same period last financial year. This represents an increase of 33.48 per cent.
Experts believe that the market for Pakistani fish will grow steadily due to increasing demand from both China and Vietnam as well as a reopening of the EU market, theInpapermagazine reports.
Projections indicate that if this current trend continues, seafood exports are expected to reach USD 400 million at the end of this financial year (30 June, 2014) compared to USD 317 million obtained in the previous year.
Other important markets for the country's seafood include Thailand, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Egypt, Hong Kong, Japan, Kuwait and the UAE, among others.