Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu has appealed to the Centre to protect the state’s aquaculture or fish farming merchandise from the heavy tariffs being levied by the Donald Trump administration.
In a letter to the Union Minister for Commerce and Business Piyush Goyal, Naidu requested the Centre to return to the rescue of aqua farmers by making efforts to make sure that the merchandise are exempted from further responsibility. Naidu’s TDP is an ally of the BJP on the Centre.
Informing the Union Minister that the fisheries sector performs a vital function within the State’s Gross Home Product, Naidu wrote that the Centre ought to stand by the aqua farmers when they’re in deep disaster.
He talked about within the letter that the US administration has imposed a 27 per cent import responsibility on marine meals exports from India. In 2023-24, marine meals merchandise price $2.55 billion have been exported from India to the US, of which shrimp alone accounted for 92 per cent, he wrote.
He identified that the US is imposing an obligation of solely 10 per cent on exporters like Ecuador, which not directly harms India.
The brand new US responsibility got here into impact on April 5. Merchandise already harvested based mostly on earlier orders have been packed and are actually in chilly storage or ports, the CM stated, since these too are actually topic to elevated duties.
Since chilly storages within the state are full, farmers are confused about the place to retailer their harvested aqua merchandise, he wrote. “Therefore, I make an enchantment to the Centre to carry mandatory discussions with the US Administration to incorporate shrimp within the exemption listing from duties,” Naidu wrote.
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Within the European Union, Indian exporters face non-tariff limitations together with 50% per cent inspection charges and 4 to seven per cent import duties, Naidu wrote within the letter to Goyal.
He knowledgeable him that international locations like Vietnam, nevertheless, profit from a Free Commerce Settlement with the European Union, having fun with zero-duty entry. Because of this, these international locations are capturing the European market, he wrote.
Andhra Pradesh leads the nation in aqua manufacturing, contributing 5.1 million tonnes – 76% shrimp and 24% fish – out of the nationwide 1.84 million tonnes.
