The US Department of Commerce has announced the final rates of the third administrative review of anti-dumping duty imposed on shrimp and prawns imported from India. The DoC has decided to maintain the same level of 0.79 per cent announced in the preliminary results of the review in March this year.
Only one Indian company, Devi Sea Foods, will attract a rate of 0.39 per cent [de minimis] as per the latest announcement made on Friday.
The Indian marine export sector hoped that the rate would be lowered below 0.50 per cent [de minimis] this time leading to nil duty. [Below 0.50 per cent is calculated as nil duty]. But DoC has decided to maintain the same level in the final announcement.
156 Indian companies participated in the review which is for a period from 1st February, 2007 to 31st January, 2008. Except Devi Sea Foods all the other companies will attract an anti-dumping duty at the rate of 0.79 per cent for export to the US. DoC had earlier selected Devi Sea Foods and Falcon Marine Exports as mandatory respondents to the review.
The US administration had imposed anti-dumping duty on shrimp imported from India and other East Asian countries in August, 2004 following a complaint lodged by Southern Shrimp Alliance [SSA], a local organisation of shrimp producers. Later they had also imposed heavy customs bond requirement on shrimp imported from India.
Originally DoC charged a duty of 10.16 per cent against India and this as well as the customs bond requirement had very badly hit the exports to USA. Washington has withdrawn the bond requirement based on a verdict of the Appellate Authority of the World Trade Organisation in August, 2008.
Due to these exorbitantly high duty and bond requirement the Indian exports to the US had suffered heavily during last five years.
According to the latest estimates of the Marine Products Export Development Authority [MPEDA] exports to USA had dropped to $ 227.29 million, down by 10.18 per cent in 2008-09 pushing down the country to fourth position after EU, China and Japan.
EU contributed 33 per cent to India's marine export kitty while US contribution dropped to 12 per cent. The number of actual exporters to USA has also dropped to around 70 from 225 in 2004.
Source : Business Standard