Tiger-prawn cargo stuck in Japan, CM moves Centre

With Japan refusing to receive tiger prawn consignments from the state citing quality issues, chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday took up the cause of exporters and urged Union commerce minister Anand Sharma to intervene.

The move comes in the wake of the Seafood Exporters' Association of India seeking help from the chief minister to bail exporters out of the crisis.

"We do not want the expensive consignment to go waste. The Centre must negotiate with the Japanese government. If they still refuse to accept it, the containers must be quickly returned," Mamata said on Thursday.

It may be noted that the Centre did send representatives to Japan to impress upon officials there that it cannot stop imports by framing tougher laws unilaterally. But the team conceded that even if Japan decided to change the law, it would take a long time.

The stalemate began after Japan, which ships in Rs 650 crore worth tiger prawns from the state annually, barred unloading of prawn consignments at its docks after it detected presence of anti-oxidents beyond the permissible limit. Ethoxyquine, an anti-oxident, is mixed in prawn feed to increase the perishable commodity's shelf life.

Some 35 containers of frozen tiger prawns were held up at different ports across Japan. Another 150 containers were stranded at sea while 150 more are waiting in Kolkata and Haldia for despatch.

While the large 40-feet containers hold around Rs 70 lakh worth tiger prawns, the smaller ones are worth half of that.

The imbroglio has left exporters from the state counting heavy losses. Though the prawns have not begun decaying yet, unless the imbroglio is resolved soon, several hundred crores worth consignment will turn junk. According to Seafood Exporters Association of India representative Rajarshi Bandyopadhyay, the problem had surfaced due to Japan's norms that were 100-times more stringent than that of the US. While the US sets the anti-oxident sensitive index at 0.2ppm, in Japan it is 0.01ppm.

"Till recently, we used to conduct tests for antibiotics, salmonela, e-coli and vibrio cholera according to the guidelines of Japanese importers. But last month, Japan suddenly notified the ethoxyquine detection test and earmarked extremely stringent norms," said Bandyopadhyay.

According to exporter Amit Chakraborty, Japanese companies had already paid for the shipment that is in the ports and the letters of credit had been honoured. "Now, the Japan government is seeking a refund which is technically not possible. That is what is holding up the other shipments at sea," he said.