The Hindu Business Line : Seafood exporters to appeal against US dumping duty

THE Seafood Exporters Association of India (SEAI) has decided to appeal against the imposition of anti-dumping duties on Indian shrimp exports to the US at the Court of International Trade at New York.

The trade is quite optimistic that the International Trade Commission, in its final judgement on January 31, would rule that there is no injury or potential injury to the US shrimp industry from imported products.

"Even if the judgement of ITC is in favour of the petitioner, Indian seafood exporters have decided to make a final appeal to the Court of International Trade," a statement issued by the SEAI has said.

Though India's duty has been reduced to a single digit figure of 9.45 per cent, the seafood trade maintained that this duty is an irritant and was totally unwarranted.

Criticising the imposition of the duty, they said it would in no way help to protect, revive or restructure the US shrimp industry.

Since there exists the possibility of companies being reviewed or requesting to be reviewed, the US importers have begun to insist on buying Indian shrimp only on duty-paid basis.

Thus, the US importers did not want to directly import and thus avoid the risk of duty revision on companies in future, the SEAI said.

Indian exporters are thus compelled to register themselves as "importers on record" and take delivery on a duty-paid basis.

The US Customs have also begun to insist that all such imports and importer on record companies provide custom bond for the full value of duty on a year's estimated export of the company.

This could add up to a huge amount between $0.5 million to as much as $5 million per year for the next five years, the SEAI said. Since these bonds are valid only for one year, most companies will face a situation where it is required to have 2 to 3 bonds running concurrently.

The US bond companies issuing such custom bonds are asking for 100 per cent margin from importer on record companies for issuing such bonds.

The SEAI felt that this bond requirement is highly discriminatory and could become a non-tariff barrier.

The association felt that it is quite unreasonable to ask for full duty amount for one year through bonds, especially since the exporters will be delivering the product at the US after paying full duty.

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