International Seafood Show: Nirmala Sitharaman hand in shifting Chennai meet to Visakhapatnam?
Chennai: Chennai, which hosted a highly successful Global Investors Meet a month back, seems to have lost the opportunity to host the flagship show in the international seafood arena.
The 20th edition of India International Seafood Show (IISS), scheduled to be held at the Chennai trade centre from January 22 -24, 2016, will now be held in Visakhapatnam, reportedly due to political pressure.
The exhibition is jointly organised by Marine Products Export Development Authority (MPEDA), which functions under the Union commerce ministry, and Seafood Exporters’ Association of India.
However, the announcement made by commerce and industry minister Nirmala Sitharaman, MP from Andhra Pradesh, about the next edition going to be held in Vishakapatanam has come as a surprise to many stakeholders.
Incidentally, her husband, Parakala Prabhakar, is communications advisor in Andhra Pradesh Government and holds a Cabinet rank position. The meet is held once in two years.
The past three editions of this international show were in Chennai and the venue for the next edition was also fixed here. “The change will mean scaling down the show and it will send a wrong signal to the prospective exhibitors,” said a senior official associated with the show on condition of anonymity. “Canvassing for IISS 2016 was made during SENA Boston 2014, SEG Brussels 2014 and in many other international sea food fairs and a separate brochure was designed mentioning Chennai as the venue,” the official added.
According to MPEDA records, seafood exports from India crossed $5.5 billion in the last fiscal. Volume of exports crossed one million tonne for the first time and exports aggregated to 10,51,243 tonne valued at Rs 33,441.61 crore. Seafood exports recorded a growth of 6.86 per cent in volume, 10.69 per cent in rupee term.
IISS presents a huge scope for tapping new avenues and introducing various technology and has greatly helped in building brand identity for Indian seafood products to the global market. The last edition of the show witnessed participation from countries like Japan, Norway, Vietnam, countries from European Union and China. Fifty leading international firms participated in the show with their machinery giving live demonstrations.
