India is among 37 countries that have been cleared by the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) to start exporting marine food products to China, K Nagaraj Naidu, Counsellor (Commercial) at the Indian Embassy said.
The new regulations require all countries exporting aquatic products to China to ensure that their consignments are accompanied with inspection certificates, the formats of which has to be previously approved and notified by AQSIQ. China had imposed the new requirements last year.
Last year India exported about $149 million worth of marine food products, mostly frozen fish and prawns. The overall Chinese marine export market is about $5 billion. "We hope to see far bigger exports of our marine food products into China, now that we have necessary permissions in place," he said.
Russia tops the list of marine food exporters to China, exporting about US $1.5 billion worth of marine food last year. Other important exporters to China include the US, Norway, New Zealand, and Japan. India is the seventh largest exporter.
