Kochi: The existing anti-dumping duty paid by Indian seafood traders on shrimp exports into the US would be shortly reviewed by the 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 US state department has asked Indian exporters to submit their requests for the fresh review.
India and four other countries have to pay a duty for exporting frozen warm water shrimps into the US after the USITC ruled in 2005 that lower-priced, pond-raised shrimps from Brazil, China, Ecuador, India, Thailand, and Vietnam were hurting the US industry.
The United States mostly harvests shrimp from the sea.
US-based Southern Shrimp Alliance (SSA) is the original petitioner against India and several other nations on the shrimp import issue.
In response to their efforts, the USITC imposed anti-dumping duties worth billions of dollars of shrimp imports from Asia and Latin America .
In addition to the anti-dumping duty, the US had also imposed a customs bond, which is a cash guarantee collected by US customs against any further rise in the anti-dumping duty.
The effect of the anti-dumping duty was dramatic on Indian exports. Indian shrimp exporting companies to US fell to less than 75 from 228 at the time of imposition of the punitive duties.
Frozen shrimp exports constitute almost 50% of the value of India ‘s total seafood exports and the US actions had a deleterious effect on the numerous aquaculture farms spread over coastal India .
Interestingly, the existing average national duty after the third review is only 0.79%, based on the duty structure for the two respondents Devi Foods (0.39 %) and Falcon Marine Exports (0.79%).
The duty of Devi Foods is effectively nil, as it is lower than the minimum rate of 0.50% (de minimis). The second annual review (for the period of February 1, 2006 to January 31, 2007) had reduced the anti-dumping duty on Indian shrimps to 1.69%.
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%. The customs bond had to be revoked in April 2009 pursuant to the World Trade Organization (WTO) Appellate Body report that the application of this requirement to shrimp from Thailand and India was inconsistent with US WTO obligations
Source : Financial Express