India Seafood Exporter Sees Modi’s ‘Blue Revolution’ Boosting Business
India’s biggest exporters of seafood says the government’s ambitious plan to promote fisheries will boost its business.
(Bloomberg) -- Avanti Feeds Ltd., one of India’s biggest exporters of seafood, says the government’s ambitious plan to promote fisheries will boost its business.
The Hyderabad-based company, in which Thai Union Group Pcl holds a 24% stake, recommends farmers should group together to benefit from the scale of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s promised investment. The so-called blue revolution will see an outlay of about 200 billion rupees ($2.7 billion) on infrastructure including cold storage and processing facilities, and Modi on Thursday rolled out an app for farmers to get market information.
“Ultimately, the backbone of this industry is the farmer, if you support him, everything will grow,” Avanti Feeds’s Joint Managing Director C. Ramachandra Rao said on a call with analysts late Wednesday.
The program is part of Modi’s stimulus to revive India’s economy from a coronavirus-induced slump. It aims to more than double per capita consumption of fish in India to 12 kilograms by March 2025, and targets to generate about 5.5 million jobs.
Avanti Feeds, which exports more than two third of its shrimps to the U.S., is looking for supply contracts with other countries including China. For the three months through June, about 26% of its exports were to Asian countries, with China being the major destination.
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“We are working with Chinese importers to develop value-added products,” Alluri Nikhilesh, executive director at the company’s frozen foods units, said on the call. “China can become a dominant importer in the next few years.”
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