KARACHI, March 27: The European Commission (EC) has offered to provide a technical adviser to the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock (Minfal) to guide the government on certain corrective measures which can be taken to resume seafood exports to European Union countries.

“We are ready to accept the EC offer of an adviser who will be a foreigner,” a senior official in the Minfal told Dawn on Tuesday. He, however, said that the government would first ensure before calling up the foreigner in our land that how maximum the adviser could be helpful in resuming seafood exports to the European countries. The official said the government is yet to fix any specific time-frame in this regard.

Pakistan’s seafood exports suffered a setback when the EC de-listed 11 fish processing plants from exporting seafood to the European countries. The delisting of units came as a result of inspection by the Food and Veterinary Office (FVO) officials of the EC in the last week of January 2007.

The EC had informed the government that no consignment of fish products would be allowed entry to the EU states after April 12.

“The Minfal and the Sindh government are jointly making efforts to ensure that the country again starts exporting seafood products within next four to five months,” the official said.

He said a meeting was held on Tuesday with the Sindh government officials and fish exporters in Karachi to review the strategy and discuss as to how deficiencies pinpointed by the EC officials at the processing plants could be overcome. The federal government would remain in touch with the Sindh government till the ban is lifted by the EC, he added.

The official said Pakistan would definitely lose its 20 to 25 per cent share to the EU markets out of its total export of fish and fish products and exporters might not get competitive prices in other countries.

Meanwhile, chairman, Pakistan Seafood Industries Association (PSIA), Mohammad Hanif Khan, said Pakistan might not be fetching the same price as of the EU in other countries.

As far as cuttlefish and squid are concerned, whose landing at the harbour gears momentum in the end of March to end of May, they can be diverted to Far-Eastern markets, but these items would get low prices as compared to high prices offered by the EU buyers.

Similarly, kiddy shrimp, whose peak export season begins from August to October, will remain idle due to ban on EU states. There would virtually be no foreign buyer of kiddy in bulk shipments, besides exporters will be getting low prices as compared to EU in case they make shipments to other countries in low quantities.

He said the EU buyers of Pakistani seafood products are now diverting towards India, Thailand and Bangladesh but they may face problems as exporters of these countries would demand higher prices to cash the situation.