MAHARASHTRA STATE FISHERIES DEPARTMENT (REGION NASHIK) CONDUCT SESSION ON TILAPIA TRADE

Maharashtra state fisheries department conduct session on tilapia trade. Maharashtra is among one of the big coastal states in country India. Department of Fisheries, Government of Maharashtra (Region Nashik) organised a special lecture for its department officials on ‘International Trade of Tilapia & Status of India’ dated 14.12.2022 at Nashik. The session has been conducted in the Nashik Region of Maharashtra state. Mr Amod Ashok Salgaonkar, Co-founder & Chief Operating Officer of A2S2 Enterprises has been called as a Special Speaker for the said event.
The speaker has given wide understanding of global overview of tilapia production, international trade of tilapia, India’s export to the world in tilapia products, domestic scenario of tilapia business, important aspects of entering in major international market of tilapia. Chosen selected entrepreneurs from the region has also attended the session.

“Government of India, Department of Fisheries has given priority importance to scale the tilapia production in a country and through PMMSY (Pradhan Mantri Matysa Sampada Yojana) flagship scheme, we are doing everything under our control to support all the stakeholders involved in fisheries & aquaculture sector of Maharashtra to boost the segment” said Dr Atul Patne, Commissioner & Secretary (Additional Charge) for Department of Fisheries, Government of Maharashtra.

Mr S P Wategaonkar, Deputy Commissioner of Fisheries, Nashik Region (Maharashtra State) mentioned:

“We want to let all our officers understand the latest trends in tilapia business so that they can adopt necessary measures to help entrepreneurs, farmers, processors involved in the business to grow further. We have initiated arranging such sessions to be more equipped with industry knowledge & we will continue organising more such sessions as per requirement.”

“Looking at the global nutritious food requirement with high protein at an affordable price, Tilapia is the strong potentially candidate animal fish food species which will become the game changer from fisheries & aquaculture stream in immediate next few years. The trend is particularly important when shrimp segment is tumbling globally & indication of implementing high resource tax on salmon industry in Norway (from January 2023) may impact global trade of these two important fish food species.” explained Amod Ashok Salgaonkar during an event.

Among the total world tilapia production of 6.88 million tonnes in 2018, farmed category contributed 87.6% & only 12.4% produced from capture fisheries as per FAO data whereas global import trade shown figure of 1.49 billion USD in 2018. China is the largest producer of tilapia in the world market. Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) & Worldfish led study for Indian market in 2022 estimated production of tilapia in India to about 70000 MT for the year 2020.

“UN Comtrade fetched data shows the export of Indian Tilapia has more than 99.93% tilapia whole (fresh + frozen) form & negligible 0.07% contribution came from tilapia fillet (fresh + frozen) form for the export trade value of 32,69,000 USD in 2018. The total import trade of tilapia (from 27+ countries) in US market has been seen at 612 million USD for the period of Jan-Oct 2022. Having the logo of BAP from Global Seafood Alliance (GSA) is one of the important criteria to do more sales of tilapia products in US market whereas demand is also good for ASC certified seafood.” Salgaonkar added.