Live, chilled food needs EPZ to boost export, enter new market

International buyers impose various requirements, including standard packaging and hygienic processing, to ensure the best quality when they import live and chilled food from Bangladesh, but the country is losing out on a potential market since there is no export processing zone (EPZ) for these products, said Bangladesh Live and Chilled Food Exporters Association Secretary General Sakawat Hossain Sumon in an interview with The Business Post’s Abdur Razzak Sohel

How much has the Russia-Ukraine war affected exports and what’s the status now?

The overall export was sharply affected first by the Covid-19 pandemic. The war happened and became a major challenge just when we were on the verge of making some recovery. Even though our global peers have been badly affected, Bangladesh’s export performance is still good due to the quality and taste of the products.

Bangladesh exported approximately 5,760 metric tonnes of live and chilled food in the 2020-21 financial year and 6,302 metric tonnes in FY2021-22. We mainly export crabs, Kuchia, and marine and farmed fishes.

Currently, the live and chilled food export situation is somewhat good in the European market. But export to China, where we used to send a significant portion, has stopped because the clients there have set some stronger requirements than before. They are looking for a better quality of food as well as updated food packaging and processing.

The sector is suffering because China is yet to allow direct export even though we applied one year ago. But our products are still going there through Taiwan and Hong Kong.

What’s Bangladesh’s position in the global market? What’s the speciality of Bangladeshi live and chilled food?

Bangladesh’s main competitors are India, Myanmar, the Philippines, Pakistan and Indonesia. But global buyers prefer Bangladesh for importing fish for their quality and unique taste.

Our fishes have special demand in the international market. Global buyers are interested to import quality fish from Bangladesh even if the price is high. Our fishes have more demand than the Indian products even though their type and quality are nearly the same.

What’s the supply and demand status?

Bangladeshi fishes have significant demand all over the world. There’s a huge demand for crab in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and many other countries, except the Muslim ones. But we are not producing the necessary amount to meet the global demand. For example, China and Hong Kong have regular demand for 5 to 10 tonnes of fish. But we couldn’t supply as per the demand due to low production.

We find a maximum of 2 tonnes of fish two times a month. We can export for 10 days monthly but then we just wait the other 20 days out for fish. We get huge orders but not enough fish.

Despite a significant contribution to the country’s economy, how much policy support does this sector enjoys?

We did not get incentives in the past, but we are enjoying a 10 per cent incentive for exporting crab and Kuchia since FY2018-19. The Fisheries Department now provides policy support to us.

But we want a more positive response to boost exports. It still takes too long to get licences. Airlines also increase the fares when they wish, especially when there is a shortage of flights. The government should focus on making the system easier and ensure proper monitoring so that airlines can’t hike the flight rates as they wish.

What are the challenges this sector is still facing?

We have the Blue Crab Fishery Regulations of 1998 that needs to be updated with modernised provisions. Currently, the farmers cannot catch crabs two months early because of the breeding season. Our breeding season is January and February, which generally falls in the winter. But it’s not correct. We had requested the authorities to set June-July as the breeding season. It was even backed by a study. But nothing has happened yet.

Also, the law gave special power to the related office that could stop fishing for more than two months. It may seem like a silly issue. But if the concerned government official uses the power as they see fit, it creates a big challenge to export crabs. If we want permission to export farmed crabs, we have to wait 10 days just to get it.

It will be better to make June-July the breeding season because we want to export throughout the year without any delay. The government also needs to address the officials who abuse their power.

What is needed to boost exports?

International buyers, mostly the ones in China, now have stricter requirements, including better packaging and processing, to ensure quality products. Sometimes it becomes very challenging to maintain the required standard due to the absence of a specific EPZ.

Currently, our exporters have no permanent packaging place for their products. After they are processed in factories, we rent flats in the Uttara area to carry out the packaging of live and chilled foods. But flat or building owners make us leave every time because of the smell of fish. We are unable to run our businesses properly because of this problem. We need a permanent EPZ like the other sectors.

If that happens, our export volume will double very soon, and we’ll be able to enter new markets around the world. The government is providing EPZ facilities to many export goods which are highly dependent on imported raw materials. The live and chilled food industry is based on local production completely. It deserves an EPZ.