PIB TrackerSeafood exporters meet eyes EEZ and high-seas growth
India charts a push into value-added marine exports as it operationalises the EEZ Rules through Access Passes and chases a ₹1 lakh crore target.
What happened
- The Department of Fisheries hosted a Seafood Exporters Meet 2026 in New Delhi, chaired by the Union Minister for Fisheries, Animal Husbandry & Dairying.
- The Minister told exporters that India's seafood exports had grown from about ₹62,000 crore in the previous year to roughly ₹68,000 crore this year, and set a working target of ₹1 lakh crore.
- He said the EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone) Rules are being operationalised through Access Passes, with priority for cooperative societies to keep the growth inclusive.
- High-value tuna potential was flagged from the Andaman & Nicobar Islands, the EEZ and the high seas — waters India has historically under-exploited.
- Exporters were urged to lean on a support stack of EIC, NCDC, NABARD and MoFPI to move up the value chain rather than ship raw, low-margin product.
- Attendees included MPEDA, NFDB, EIC, NABARD, NCDC, NCEL and MoFPI — the agencies that together touch quality control, finance, cooperatives and processing.
Background & context
India is one of the world's largest producers and exporters of fish and marine products, and the seafood basket is among the country's most valuable agri-exports by value. The headline numbers shared at the meet track a long climb: marine product exports rose from ₹30,213 crore in 2013–14 to ₹62,408 crore in 2024–25 — roughly a doubling in value over the decade. The single largest driver remains shrimp (frozen shrimp), which alone accounted for about ₹43,334 crore of the 2024–25 value, making it the backbone of the export book. Across the basket India ships 350-plus product varieties to around 130 markets, with the United States the largest single destination at 36.42% of export value in 2024–25, followed by China, the European Union, Southeast Asia, Japan and the Middle East.
The policy spine under this trade is the Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana (PMMSY), the Centre's flagship fisheries scheme launched in 2020 for the 2020–21 to 2024–25 period with an outlay of about ₹20,050 crore — the largest-ever investment in Indian fisheries. PMMSY is administered by the Department of Fisheries under the Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry & Dairying, and it operates as a centrally-sponsored-plus-central-sector scheme spanning marine, inland and aquaculture fisheries. It sits under the broader Blue Revolution umbrella that preceded it. At this meet the Department positioned PMMSY as the instrument funding quality fish-seed production, brackish-water aquaculture, export-oriented species, end-to-end traceability and post-harvest infrastructure — exactly the links that decide whether India exports raw shrimp or higher-margin value-added product.
The newer policy lever is the EEZ Rules. An Exclusive Economic Zone extends up to 200 nautical miles from a coastal state's baseline, within which the state has sovereign rights over living and non-living resources under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). It is one zone in a graded set measured from the same baseline: the territorial sea (up to 12 nautical miles, where the state has full sovereignty), the contiguous zone (up to 24 nautical miles, limited enforcement rights), and then the EEZ (up to 200 nautical miles, resource rights but not full sovereignty). Beyond the EEZ lie the high seas, which belong to no state and are open to all. India's EEZ is one of the largest in the world, yet much of its deeper-water and oceanic fishery — particularly oceanic tuna in the Andaman & Nicobar waters and the high seas beyond the EEZ — has remained under-harvested by Indian vessels. The framework discussed here is being operationalised through Access Passes, with cooperative societies given priority so that the gains from deep-sea and high-seas fishing are not captured only by large operators.
It helps to read this against the scheme family. PMMSY succeeded the earlier Blue Revolution: Integrated Development and Management of Fisheries scheme and folds in concerns the older programme carried — fish-seed quality, brackish-water and mariculture, cold chains and landing-centre upgrades. Its declared aims were to raise fish production and productivity, modernise the value chain, double fishers' incomes and generate employment, while extending insurance and welfare cover to fishers. The export angle is one slice of a much wider scheme that also covers inland and aquaculture fisheries, which is why the Department frames seafood exports as the visible tip of the PMMSY value chain rather than a stand-alone trade programme.
For Prelims
- Nodal ministry/body: Department of Fisheries, Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry & Dairying — organiser of the Seafood Exporters Meet 2026.
- Export value trajectory: ₹30,213 cr (2013–14) → ₹62,408 cr (2024–25); flagged at roughly ₹62,000 cr → ₹68,000 cr year-on-year at the meet.
- Lead product: Shrimp — about ₹43,334 cr in 2024–25, the largest single item in the basket.
- Reach: 350+ varieties shipped to ~130 markets.
- Top destination: USA, 36.42% of export value (2024–25); then China, EU, Southeast Asia, Japan, Middle East.
- EEZ Rules: operationalised via Access Passes; cooperative societies prioritised; opens EEZ and high-seas fishing, including tuna from Andaman & Nicobar.
- PMMSY: flagship fisheries scheme, launched 2020 (2020–21 to 2024–25), outlay ≈₹20,050 cr, under the Department of Fisheries; sits under the Blue Revolution umbrella.
- Target: ₹1 lakh crore in seafood exports.
- Support agencies named: EIC (Export Inspection Council — quality/certification), NCDC (cooperatives finance), NABARD (rural/agri finance), MoFPI (food processing); plus MPEDA, NFDB, NCEL.
- EEZ basics: extends up to 200 nautical miles from the baseline; sovereign rights over resources flow from UNCLOS.
The set to keep together (so "how many of these" survives): the fisheries institutional family named here — MPEDA (Marine Products Export Development Authority, export promotion), NFDB (National Fisheries Development Board, development), EIC (Export Inspection Council, quality certification), NABARD (agri/rural finance), NCDC (National Cooperative Development Corporation, cooperatives finance), NCEL (National Cooperative Exports Limited, cooperative exports) and MoFPI (Ministry of Food Processing Industries). All sit around the same value chain but do different jobs — a classic match-the-pairs spread.
Why it matters
Seafood is one of the few agri-export lines where India runs a large and growing surplus, and the meet reframes the ambition from volume to value. The problem it addresses is concentration risk and low margins: the book is heavily weighted toward one product (shrimp) and one market (the USA at over a third of value), which leaves exporters exposed to a single country's tariff, anti-dumping or sanitary-standard decisions. Pushing into value-added product (ready-to-cook, breaded, retail-pack rather than raw frozen) and into new species like oceanic tuna is how India diversifies both the basket and the destination map.
The EEZ-Rules-plus-Access-Passes design matters because India's deeper waters and the high seas are an under-used resource: large oceanic stocks lie within reach of the Andaman & Nicobar EEZ but have historically been fished more by foreign fleets than Indian ones. Routing access through cooperative societies is a deliberate equity choice — it tries to widen who benefits from deep-sea fishing beyond a handful of large vessel-owners, aligning the trade goal with the welfare goal that PMMSY already carries for small and traditional fishers. The reliance on a finance-and-quality stack (EIC for certification, NABARD/NCDC for credit, MoFPI for processing) signals that the binding constraints are seen as quality compliance, traceability and post-harvest infrastructure rather than catch volume alone.