Bhubaneswar: A delegation of European Union (EU) led by Marcus Brunner visited the state to evaluate control systems governing fishery products in Orissa. The delegates inspected the fish landing harbours along with fish producing farms during their visit between November 21 and 28.
The EU team met Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi at the Secretariat here Wednesday and expressed satisfaction over the quality of aquaculture products of Orissa. Brunner said aquaculture in Orissa is now at a booming stage.
They also suggested setting up of more number of pre-processing centres in the state. At present, one preprocessing centre is functioning at Dhamra. The state has around 11 processing plants satisfying the EU norms, sources said.
The team would submit their report to Centre soon. “European Union is the second largest importer of the fish products from the state. The export value to European Union has increased to around `150 crore in 2016-17 from `89.42 crore in 2012-13,” said fisheries secretary Vishal Gagan.
Other major countries importing Orissa aquaculture products include Japan, USA and Middle East countries. The value of total seafood exports from the state has touched `2,205 crore in 2016-17 from `908 crore in 2012-13 fiscal, Gagan added.
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