Kochi: India’s largely export-oriented seafood sector suffered a major setback Wednesday as the US department of commerce hiked the anti-dumping duty on shrimp exports from India by a whopping almost 300%.
Frozen shrimp exports constitute almost 44% of the value of India’s total seafood exports and the US actions could have a deleterious effect on the numerous aquaculture farms spread all over coastal India. Bulk of India’s frozen shrimps is exported to the US.
The preliminary report of the fourth review is likely to impact the sunset review of the anti-dumping duty to be conducted by United States International Trade Commission (USITC).
Under the US Tariff Act of 1930, all tariffs come automatically under review every five years and the anti-dumping duty on shrimp imports from India, China, Brazil, Thailand and Vietnam imposed from 2005 would be revoked or continued on the basis of a fresh evaluation. The preliminary report of the fourth review (for the period of February 1, 2008, through January 31, 2009) claims that one of the Indian respondents was dumping shrimps into US, sources said.
The review points out that respondent was selling shrimps to US at lesser rates when compared with rates offered to Japan and hurting the US industry.
The US department has hiked the anti-dumping duty for the respondent Liberty Group to 4.44%, which effectively takes the Indian average to 2.67%, sources report.
The average national duty is to be 2.67 % based on the duty structure for the three respondents Devi Foods (0.39 %) Falcon Marine Exports (0.89%) and Liberty Group (4.44%) The duty of Devi Foods is effectively nil, as it is lower than the minimum rate of 0.50% (de minimis). The third annual review had lowered the duty to less than 0.79% from 1.69% after the second review. In the first annual review conducted for the period of August 2004 to January 2006, anti-dumping duty on Indian shrimps was brought down from 10.54% to 7.22%.
US-based Southern Shrimp Alliance (SSA) is the original petitioners against India and several other nations in the shrimp import issue. They allege that that lower-priced, pond-raised shrimps from Brazil, China, Ecuador, India, Thailand, and Vietnam were hurting the U.S. industry. The United States mostly harvests shrimp from the sea.
In response to their efforts, the US International Trade Commission imposed anti-dumping duties on billions of dollars.
Source : Financial Express