The Hindu Business Line : Shrimp exporters bid to get US dumping duty revoked

Agri-Biz & Commodities - Aquaculture
Industry & Economy - Natural Calamities

Shrimp exporters bid to get US dumping duty revoked — US team to survey tsunami-hit areas

R. Balaji

Chennai , Aug. 21

REPRESENTATIVES from the aquaculture industry, including the Marine Products Export Development Authority, made a pitch to a delegation of the US International Trade Commission on the impact of tsunami on aquaculture industry and shrimp exports.

The delegation is here to survey the affected areas and to see if there is reason to review the anti-dumping duty levied on shrimp exports from India to the US.

According to industry sources, this is a last-ditch attempt to get the anti-dumping duty revoked or reduced. If not, the exporters would be saddled with an anti-dumping duty of about 10 per cent for at least the next five years.

The industry is making a bid on the grounds of changed circumstances following the tsunami that hit the east coast of India, particularly Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh — the area where shrimp production is concentrated — on December 26, 2004.

While declining to go into the details, representatives of seafood exporters and farmers said that they are pushing for the review on the grounds of the adverse biological impact of the tsunami on shrimp resources.

Though there has been physical damage to the hatcheries, which produce the shrimp seeds, and to the shrimp farms, of greater concern is the long-term biological impact on the natural resources.

According to a hatchery owner, brood stock, the mother shrimps that are the source of shrimp seeds for farming, were simply not available. When they are caught in the sea they do not produce good quality seeds. This in turn has affected production at the farms and the output.

Water quality has also suffered, they say.

According to a representative of the Seafood Exporters Association of India, the focus of the presentation was on the physical loss and damage, impact on hatchery operations, farms and the fisheries.

This is to give an overall view of the impact of the disaster that struck the region. All the factors together have hit the ongoing operations and caused production loss and that the Indian industry is not a threat to the US players.

The MPEDA and the fisheries authorities have also presented an assessment of the damage.

At the daylong meeting representatives from hatcheries, processors, shrimp farmers and officials of the Marine Products Export Development Authority made presentations. The team is next likely to make an independent survey of the affected areas, they say.

The review itself could take a month or two after which the decision will be announced by the US authorities. The US delegation has also circulated a questionnaire to the industry, which has responded, the sources said.

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