In a serious setback to the seafood export industry, the US Department of Commerce (DoC) has decided to continue with the anti-dumping duty on shrimp imported from India, approving the base duty of 10.17 per cent. Announcing the final results of the expedited Sunset Review of anti-dumping duty, DoC found that the revocation of anti-dumping duty will be continued.
This decision of DoC would hit the export industry hard, as it cannot survive this exorbitantly high duty because competition from East Asian nations is severe. Due to the duty imposed in February 2005, export to the US fell and the number of exporters fell to 75 now from around 200 in 2005.
The Indian exporters had high hopes on the Sunset review as DoC had reduced the duty regularly and the average duty was fixed at 0.79 per cent. Later this was enhanced to 2.67 per cent announcing the preliminary results of the fourth administrative review.
The exporters fraternity here hoped that the duty would be reduced to de-minimis (lower than 0.5 per cent) in the Sunset Review. But DoC decided to stick to the original rate of 10.17 per cent as base rate. The latest decision is also applicable to Brazil, China and Thailand.