Seafood exports seen to drop this year

GEORGE TOWN: The quantity of Malaysian seafood export is expected to drop to 150,053 tonnes in 2015 from 166,725 tonnes a year ago, while its value is projected to decline to RM2.23bil from RM2.35bil.

The Malaysian Frozen Foods Processors Association (MFFPA) chairman Saw Hai Earn said that this year, the European seafood import was expected to be at 5.735 million tonnes valued at 19.9 billion euros.

“The value of the European seafood import in 2014 was about 19.5 billion euros,” he said.

According to Saw, the European gross domestic product (GDP) stands at about 14 billion euros while the combined GDP of UK, France and Germany alone is 7.25 billion euros.

“The GDP per capita is 34,000 euros per annum. We should be exporting more to Europe to tap into the massive market.

“But because there are only a handful of European Union (EU)-approved prawn farms and fishing vessels in the country, we have not been able to tap into the European market effectively,” he said.

Saw said the local prawn farms and fishing vessels were reluctant to obtain EU certification so that they could export to Europe.

“To obtain the necessary certification, the farms and fishing vessels need to invest substantially to upgrade their facilities to meet EU health requirements,” he said.

Saw said the federal government should give rebates to those prawn farms and fishing vessels that had invested to upgrade their facilities to comply with EU health standards.

“This will encourage more local farms and vessels to obtain EU certification,” he added.

The Malaysian seafood processors face high import duties imposed by EU countries with the withdrawal of Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) effective Jan 1, 2014..

Competitor countries such as Bangladesh, India, Vietnam and Indonesia are still eligible for preferential tariff treatment from 0% to 7% under the EU’s GSP scheme.

“The EU is the world’s single-largest market. Last year, Malaysia’s trade with EU grew 6% to RM143.98bil from RM135.79bil in 2013,” Saw said.

On the Malaysian-Turkey Free Trade Agreement (MTFTA), which recently came into force, Saw said the import duty on seafood products from Malaysia was still very high, ranging from 32% to 54%.

“We hope the Malaysian government can expedite the Malaysian-EU FTA negotiation process and that the tariff treatment on fishery products will be favourable to the seafood industry,” he said.