Commending the role of Commerce Ministry in facilitating the export trade from India, Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman, Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Commerce and Industry, has said that “We are going to conduct the India International Seafood Show in Visakhapatnam. She assured that whatever support is required to facilitate the export trade the commerce ministry will provide to develop the region.

 While laying the foundation stone of Sub Office and Laboratory Complex of Export Inspection Council at Vishakahapatnam, she informed that this office complex in particular will be supported with state of the art laboratory infrastructure with latest facilities and sophisticated instruments is expected to meet the analytical requirements of seafood industries at Visakhapatnam, and save time and cost of transportation. She also assured that Export inspection Council should get the building ready at earliest by 2017.

 The ceremony was attended by Sri Ganta Srinivasa Rao, Minister for Human Resource Development, Government of Andhra Pradesh and Dr. K. Haribabu, Member of Parliament, Visakhapatnam and officers from local authorities, office bearer of seafood exporters association and several distinguished exporters.

 Export Inspection Council (EIC) of India, under the Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Government of India, along with its filed agencies Exports Inspection Agencies (EIAs) located across the country with a network of 30 sub offices (SO) are responsible for the quality control and inspection of notified commodities from India. On this 50th year of its inception today EIA Chennai SO Visakhapatnam celebrated its foundation stone laying ceremony.

 The Export Inspection Council (EIC) was set up by the Government of India under Section 3 of the Export (Quality Control and Inspection) Act, 1963, in order to ensure sound development of export trade of India through Quality Control and Inspection and for matters connected thereof. The Export Inspection Agency – Chennai, one of the 5 regional offices of EIC, was established in 1965 under section 7 of the Export (Quality Control and Inspection) Act, 1963 to cater to the needs of exporter fraternity for the state of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry. Visakhapatnam, one of the 7 sub-offices under EIA Chennai, was established in 1973, is rendering service to the export trade for the past 42 years.

 The current office is supported by a small microbiological testing facility. In order to strengthen the infrastructure in this region, this initiative was taken and to achieve the ultimate goal of serving the export trade community effectively, and developing trust among its trading partners to achieve global recognition.

Export quality control: new sub-office and laboratory to strengthen seafood inspection and testing capacity, reducing transport time. Establishment of a sub-office and laboratory complex of the Export Inspection Council at Visakhapatnam will provide state-of-the-art laboratory infrastructure and instruments to meet local analytical requirements of seafood industries, reduce transportation time and cost, and support exporter compliance. The project is framed within the EIC's statutory mandate under the Export (Quality Control and Inspection) Act, 1963 and builds on the existing Export Inspection Agency-Chennai regional structure and the Visakhapatnam sub-office's prior limited microbiological testing capacity.