An analysis of trade performance of the fisheries sector in India

In Indian context fisheries sector is one of the fastest growing sectors and known as a ‘Sunrise Sector’ which provides the income and employment along with nutrition and food security to the millions of peoples of the country (PIB, 2021). Fisheries contributed about 1.21% of the total GVA and 6.56% of the GVA from agriculture sector in 2019-20. Fish and fish products have emerged as the largest group in the agricultural exports of India. It is influenced by the demand, domestic production, consumer preference, trade agreements between countries and trade policies. In view of the increasing importance of fisheries sector in the national economy, the study was undertaken to examine the trade performance of the sector. India’s Share in World Trade of Fisheries Products has increased from 4.12% in 2002-03 to 5.60% in 2019-20. From the calculation of Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) and Revealed Symmetric Comparative Advantage (RSCA), it has been observed that fisheries sector has been quite competitive over the years with relative comparative advantage in exporting in most of the fisheries products. Markov chain approach has been used to identify important relationships that exist among importing countries of Indian Marine products, the structural change in the volume of marine products export from India was examined using transitional probability matrices.