Marine product export does something pivotal in the fish export economy of Kerala. The post WTO period
has witnessed a strengthening of food safety and quality standards applied on food products in the
developed countries. In the case of the primary importers, like the EU, the US and Japan, market actions
will have far reaching reverberations and implications for the marine product exports from developing
nations. The article focuses on Kerala’s marine product exports that had been targeting the markets of the
EU, the US and Japan, and the concomitant shift in markets owing to the stringent stipulations under the
WTO regime. Despite the overwhelming importance of the EU in the marine product exports of the state,
the pronounced influence of irregular components on the quantity and value of marine product exports to
the EU in the post WTO period raises concern. However, the tendencies of market diversification
validated by the forecast generated for the emerging markets of the SEA, the MEA and others, to an extent,
allay the pressures on the marine product export sector of the state which had hitherto relied heavily on the
markets of the EU, the US and Japan