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The Department of Fisheries under the Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying hosted a high-level bilateral meeting with a Seychelles delegation on 25 August 2026.
The Seychelles side was led by Minister of Fisheries, Agriculture and Blue Economy Wallace Cosgrow; the Indian side by Dr Abhilaksh Likhi, Secretary, Department of Fisheries.
India told the meeting that national fish production has reached 19.7 million tonnes and seafood exports are valued at USD 8.46 billion.
The agenda covered mariculture, modern hatcheries, tuna fisheries optimisation, stock assessment, post-harvest engineering, marine conservation, fisheries data systems, monitoring-control-surveillance infrastructure and the use of Artificial Intelligence in harvest management.
Seychelles pressed for a bilateral MoU dedicated to fisheries and aquaculture with an advanced work plan; both sides agreed on a structured annual work plan, regulatory alignment, reciprocal laboratory access and joint pilot projects.
The blue economy is the sustainable use of ocean and coastal resources for economic growth, livelihoods and jobs while preserving the health of marine ecosystems. It is broader than fisheries: it takes in aquaculture, marine biotechnology, shipping and ports, coastal and cruise tourism, offshore renewable energy, seabed minerals and marine ecosystem services such as carbon storage. What makes it a distinct policy idea rather than a synonym for 'ocean industries' is the conditionality — growth is counted only if the resource base is not depleted, which is why stock assessment and monitoring, control and surveillance (MCS) sit at its centre. For a small island developing state like Seychelles, whose land area is tiny but whose Exclusive Economic Zone is vast, the blue economy is effectively the whole economy. For India, with a coastline of thousands of kilometres, a large EEZ and a fishing population in the millions, it is a growth sector and a food-security question at once. The two sides' agenda maps directly onto this: mariculture and hatcheries expand production, stock assessment and MCS constrain it to what the ocean can bear, and post-harvest engineering and product diversification raise the value extracted from each tonne landed.
Simple Analogy: Think of the ocean as an endowment fund. The blue economy is the rule that you may live on the returns but not eat into the capital — which is why measuring the corpus (stock assessment) and watching who withdraws from it (surveillance) matter as much as spending the income.
Drive a 'Blue Revolution' — raise fish production and productivity, modernise the value chain, and improve fishers' incomes
Key: India's flagship fisheries scheme, launched in September 2020 as a centrally sponsored scheme with a total investment of ₹20,050 crore for 2020-21 to 2024-25. Roughly ₹12,340 crore is for beneficiary-oriented activities in marine and inland fisheries and aquaculture, and about ₹7,710 crore for fisheries infrastructure. It is the programme behind most of the capabilities India offered to share — hatcheries, mariculture, post-harvest infrastructure and extension services.
Finance the creation of fisheries infrastructure — harbours, landing centres, cold chains, hatcheries — through concessional lending rather than grants
Key: Launched in 2018-19 with a fund size of ₹7,522.48 crore, offering interest subvention of up to 3% per annum with a 12-year repayment period including a two-year moratorium on principal. It complements PMMSY: PMMSY subsidises, FIDF lends.
Enforce fisheries regulation at sea — track vessels, verify catch, deter illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing
Key: Named explicitly as a partnership area. MCS is the enforcement backbone of any sustainable fisheries regime and depends on vessel tracking, catch documentation and data systems — which is why the agenda pairs it with fisheries data systems and AI in harvest management.
India's nodal department for fisheries policy, PMMSY and international fisheries cooperation; hosted the bilateral meeting
The regional fisheries management organisation for tuna and tuna-like species in the Indian Ocean, established under Article XIV of the FAO Constitution; it sets catch limits and conservation measures that bind members including India
Western Indian Ocean archipelagic state and a key maritime partner for India; its economy rests on tuna fishing, processing and tourism, giving the fisheries relationship unusual weight
Seychelles is an archipelago of roughly 115 islands in the western Indian Ocean, north-east of Madagascar and east of the East African coast. Its capital, Victoria, stands on Mahé, the largest island and the seat of government — and also the headquarters of the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission, which makes the country a regulatory as well as a commercial centre for Indian Ocean tuna. The Outer Islands include Aldabra Atoll, a raised coral atoll inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1982 and home to the world's largest population of giant tortoises, and Assumption Island, where India and Seychelles signed an agreement in 2015 to jointly develop facilities before the project lapsed. Seychelles' land area is small but its Exclusive Economic Zone is enormous, which is the structural fact behind everything in this meeting: policing and using that maritime space is the country's central economic and security problem, and India's offer of MCS infrastructure, data systems and stock assessment speaks directly to it.
Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, a coastal state's Exclusive Economic Zone extends up to 200 nautical miles from the baseline, giving it sovereign rights over living and non-living resources — including fish. Every item on this agenda, from stock assessment to surveillance, is an EEZ-management problem, and for an archipelagic state like Seychelles the EEZ dwarfs the land.
India's maritime outreach in the region has run under the SAGAR framing — Security and Growth for All in the Region, articulated in 2015 — and its later expansion, MAHASAGAR. Fisheries cooperation is the civilian, capacity-building face of that doctrine: training, hatcheries and data systems rather than warships, delivered to the same set of island partners.
Tuna is a highly migratory species and cannot be managed by any one country's rules, which is why it is governed through regional fisheries management organisations. For the Indian Ocean that body is the IOTC, headquartered in Seychelles' own capital — so 'tuna fisheries optimisation' between India and Seychelles is being discussed inside a multilateral rulebook both sides have signed up to.
Seychelles belongs to the SIDS grouping, whose members share small landmasses, vast EEZs, dependence on marine resources and acute exposure to sea-level rise. India's technical cooperation with SIDS partners — training, laboratories, pilot projects — is a standing element of its South-South cooperation and of its claim to speak for the Global South.
India's seafood export figure of USD 8.46 billion is the outcome the export ecosystem produces; MPEDA, under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, is the statutory body that promotes and regulates those exports. Product diversification and post-harvest engineering — both on this agenda — are precisely the levers for raising export value without raising catch volume.
GS Paper 2 > International Relations > Bilateral agreements involving India; GS Paper 3 > Economy > Fisheries
General Awareness > Current Affairs and World Geography
General Awareness > Government schemes and international cooperation
India's Indian Ocean partnerships and PMMSY both recur in Prelims and GS2/GS3; the IOTC's headquarters is a classic static-GK pairing question.
Sustainable use of ocean and coastal resources for growth, livelihoods and jobs while keeping marine ecosystems healthy — spanning fisheries, aquaculture, shipping, tourism, offshore energy and marine biotechnology.
Aquaculture carried out in the sea or in seawater, as distinct from freshwater or brackish-water farming; one of the technical areas identified for joint development.
The enforcement architecture of fisheries management — vessel tracking, catch documentation and inspection — used to deter illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing.
The scientific estimation of a fish population's size and sustainable yield, which sets the ceiling on how much may be caught without depleting it.
The maritime zone extending up to 200 nautical miles from a coastal state's baseline under UNCLOS, within which it has sovereign rights over living and non-living resources.
Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana — India's flagship centrally sponsored fisheries scheme, launched September 2020 with a ₹20,050 crore investment for 2020-21 to 2024-25.