Among bold targets announced by Indian officials during the India International Seafood Show (IISS) recently were the increasing of seafood exports to $10 billion, and shrimp production to 1 million metric tons, by 2020. The $10bn target — presented by Elias Sait, secretary general of Seafood Exporters Association of India — and the 1m-metric-ton target, presented by A Jayathilak, chairman of the Marine Products Export Development Authority, were both presented at IISS, held in Goa between Jan. 27-29. India would need to increase shrimp production by 400,000t on 2016/17 levels, to reach the 1m metric tons target (see table below). Meanwhile, based on forecast seafood exports of $6bn for 2017/18, exports would need to increase by around 40% in value year-on-year. India would need to maintain or better current export and production growth rates to achieve the goals. Jayathilak said that in the April-November 2017 period, India’s seafood exports increased by 18.7% in volume and 15.2% by value (in USD). If we are able to sustain our efforts in production and augment the efforts in value added, India can become the second-largest exporter of seafood next to China within a few years, surpassing countries such as Norway, Vietnam, US and Thailand, he said during the IISS inauguration ceremony. Sait — speaking at a technical session at IISS — noted India still has large untapped regions for growth; India has a coastline of 8,000 kilometers and vast land area available for aquaculture, he said. Demand is increasing from both developed and developing countries, while Indian brands are recognized internationally in many retail and supermarket chains, he said. Challenges to reaching the goals include poor coordination between various government departments involved; infrastructure inadequacies; and shortcuts on good manufacturing practices by primary producers, Sait added. Andhra Pradesh dominates production Future growth may hinge on Andhra Pradesh, on India’s east coast, which produced 406,000 metric tons of vannamei shrimp in India in 2016/17, or 73% of total Indian vannamei output, according to figures presented by Sait. It produced another 2,000t of black tiger shrimp (monodon). Overall, India produced 600,000t of shrimp in 2016/17, according to Sait. Other regions are growing fast, but are presently still relatively small producers compared with Andhra Pradesh. West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, and Odisha (see table below) — also on the east coast — largely produced the remaining 27% of vannamei. The biggest among them — Tamil Nadu — produced 40,500t. On the west coast of India, Gujarat is the largest production hub. Maharshtra, Goa, Karnataka and Kerala — also on the west coast — are the smallest shrimp production areas in India. West Bengal — which produced more black tiger shrimp than vannamei in the period — produced 31,000t of monodon, ahead of Odisha.