Pakistan seafood exports hit record $568 million in 2025-26, and $125 million in July to September

Pakistan's seafood exports reached a record $568 million in the 2025-26 financial year, about Rs 15,700 crore at today's dollar rate, Federal Minister for Maritime Affairs Muhammad Junaid Anwar Chaudhry said on Friday 9 October, ARY News reported. Shrimp made up $62 million of that. In the first quarter of the current year, July to September 2026, exports came to $125.4 million.

The minister gave the figures while chairing the first meeting of the Prime Minister's Subcommittee on Aquaculture and Shrimp Value Chain, set up to turn shrimp farming into an export industry.

Why shrimp farming

Most of Pakistan's seafood exports still come from fish caught at sea, the minister said, which limits how far they can grow. Farmed shrimp can be scaled. The subcommittee is meant to build one system covering production, processing, quality testing and market access, and Chaudhry said the aim of the meeting was "not merely to put forward proposals but to take concrete decisions and set clear targets and workable timelines".

What he listed as needed:

• Seed, hatcheries, standard feed and disease control, with shrimp feed and seed made at home to cut imports.
• Duty and tax concessions to draw investment into farms.
• Competitive electricity tariffs, and more solar and hybrid power so farms get affordable, uninterrupted supply.
• International standards on food safety, biosecurity, cold chain, processing and traceability, without which the big markets, the United States, China and the European Union, stay hard to reach.
• Reliable data on land, water, production capacity and farming practice, to plan where farms go.

The minister pointed to the coastal belt and suitable land and water inland as the room to grow. Sindh and Balochistan hold Pakistan's coastline, with Karachi's fish harbour and processing plants at the centre of the trade today.

What it means

At $125.4 million for the first quarter, this year is running at roughly a quarter of last year's record, so the full-year total depends on the rest of the season. The bigger change the government wants is in the mix: more value from farmed shrimp and processed products, not just more catch.

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