The Hindu Business Line : US orders anti-dumping probe into shrimp imports from India

WHILE the US Commerce Department has found sufficient grounds to proceed with the shrimp anti-dumping petition filed against six countries including India, the Seafood Exporters Association of India has virtually completed the collection of statistics and mobilisation of funds to challenge the litigation in the US courts.

The US Commerce Department on Wednesday found sufficient evidence to proceed with the petition filed against six countries — Brazil, Ecuador, China, Thailand, Vietnam and India — and asked the International Trade Commission (ITC) to proceed with the hearing.

"With over 75 per cent of the US producers having signed the petition, proceeding with the hearing was a fait accompli," sources in SEAI told Business Line. The petition was filed by an ad hoc Shrimp Action Committee and is spearheaded by the Southern Shrimp Alliance, a conglomerate of shrimp industry interest from eight southern states of the US.

The Indian side is planning to contest the dumping allegations on various fronts. For one, there are specific variations between the shrimp caught from the South West coast of the US and off the Indian waters and hence, each will be fetching different prices.

While fishing in the US is a capital intensive activity calling for major investment, in India shrimp capture is pursued with very low level of capital requiring hardly any investment. This makes the cost of production considerably lower in India than those of the sea caught shrimp from the US coast.

These were two of the major differences between the Indian and the US sea caught shrimp and why Indian shrimp were cheaper, sources in SEAI said.

The cost of cultured and captured shrimp in India was far lower than those of shrimp caught and bought in the US markets, enabling Indian exports to compete with US shrimp in price, Mr Jose Cyriac, Chairman of the Marine Products Export Development Authority, had said. The petition filed before the US Commerce Department had also mixed up between the count and weight (shrimp is sold as per size, the number of shrimps constituting one kg) and that is another avenue for fighting the case.

The petition had demanded that anti-dumping duties to the tune of 32-349 per cent be imposed on shrimp imported from Brazil, 86-166 per cent on Ecuador, 80-110 per cent on India, 112-263 per cent on China, 57 per cent on Thailand and 25-93 per cent on Vietnam. The ITC is supposed to make a preliminary finding of the case by February 17. The final determination of the case is to be made on by October 17 and issuance of orders is expected by October 24, 2004.

Both Mr Jose Cyriac, Chairman of MPEDA, and Mr Abraham Tharakan, President of SEAI, are currently in Washington to protect the interest of the Indian shrimp cultivators, fishermen, processors and exporters.

Shrimp continues to be a critical component in Indian seafood exports, constituting 67 per cent in value of the $1425 million exports last year. In volume, shrimp exports constituted just 29 per cent of the total exports of 4,67,297 tonnes.

The US continues to be a very important market for Indian marine exports contributing 61,703 tonnes of exports last year. It realised $425 million, almost 30 per cent of the total value realised from marine exports. Most of this was from shrimp exports.

There has been a significant fall in marine exports to the US this year, sources in MPEDA said.

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