India Int'l Seafood Show to be held in city next year

KOLKATA: The 23rd edition of India International Seafood Show (IISS) will be held in Kolkata from February 15-17 next year to showcase the country's tremendous strides in the seafood sector.

The Marine Products Export Development Authority (MPEDA), in association with the Seafood Exporters Association of India (SEAI), will be jointly hosting the event at the Biswa Bangla Mela Prangan which will provide an ideal platform for interaction between Indian exporters and overseas importers of the country's marine products. The event was last held in Kolkata way back in 2006."The biennial showpiece event in the seafood sector will provide an opportunity to manufacturers and suppliers to display their products and clinch business deals for their processing machinery, packaging systems, processing ingredient dealers and cold chain systems. In addition, there will be an opening for service providers like the logistics and certifying/testing segments," MPEDA Chairman Dr K. N Raghavan said.

The hosting of the event in Bengal assumes significance with seafood exports from Bengal growing six times in the last eight years to Rs 8000-9000 crore presently.

"The Bengal government under the leadership of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has been very proactive in the recent past to boost seafood export. The recent banning of 20 antibiotics in the state for use in aquaculture farming is a very welcome step. The sector has the potential to grow to Rs 18000-20,000 crore and generate at least 3 lakh employment in the next five years, if the state government continues to take such proactive role," SEAI president (West Bengal) Rajarshi Banerji said.

MPEDA Deputy Director (regional division, Kolkata) Archiman Lahiri said that in Bengal there has been a pragmatic shift from exports to South East Asian countries to USA and EU. "Frozen shrimp is nearly 84 per cent contributor in exports value wise,"he added. India has exported to 123 countries in 2021-22 with over 31 per cent increase in financial terms in comparison to 2020-21.