The US administration has sought more time to implement the decision of the dispute settlement body of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to remove the continuous bond requirement (CBR) on import of seafood items from India and Thailand.
In a tripartite meeting held in Geneva on September 15, India had pressed implementation of the decision soon as the CBR had hit the country’s exports to the US. However, Washington opposed the move, arguing that they needed more time to implement the decision. The ball is now in WTO’s court and it will decide whether to allow more time to the US.
The US administration adopted the slowdown tactics to implement the verdict that was announced on August 1 this year. The cut-off date for the implementation was September 15, but the US administration had sought further clarification on the decision. In this context, the WTO had convened a consultative meeting of India, Thailand and the USA.
The settlement body had reached a decision on considering the reports of a panel of judges and appellate body in the cases filed by India and Thailand concerning the bond requirement. Later, the body had proclaimed that the bond requirement imposed by the US Customs since February 1, 2005, was illegal and a violation of global trade practices.
This was a major breakthrough for both India and Thailand on the export of warmwater shrimp to the US. Washington is still reluctant to implement the decision in order to protect its domestic shrimp aquaculture sector.
The strict imposition of CBR had made exports to the US almost impossible and the number of Indian exporters to the US has dropped to 74 from 258 in 2004. India’s export to the US had been hit badly and EU, Japan and China had emerged as the largest importers of Indian seafood items in recent years. The US share in the Indian seafood export basket had dropped to 6.72 per cent in 2007-08 due to CBR and high rate of anti-dumping duty.
Meanwhile, the European Union has announced the visit of its Food and Vetenary Office (FVO) mission to India to inspect the processing, production and fish landing centres in India in November. This visit assumes significance as the EU had blacklisted a number of Asian countries since the rate of rejection of consignments has been on the rise recently.