WTO panel meet in June crucial to shrimp exports

The future of India's shrimp exports to the US, the second largest importer of marine products from the country, will be determined at a crucial meeting of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) panel from June 6 to 8.

The panel, which was set up following requests from India and Thailand, will examine the legal sanctity of the imposition of customs bond and the exorbitant anti-dumping duty of 10.54% on the import of shrimp from a host of countries.

India had formally lodged a complaint on June 6, 2006, against USA when the US Department of Commerce (DoC) imposed 10.17 per cent anti-dumping duty on the shrimp imported from India without adhering to 'zeroing' principles of the duty. This had been raised to 10.54 per cent after the first administrative review initiated by the DoC between February 2005 and January 2006.

New Delhi had argued that the US Act was inconsistent with several anti-dumping articles of GATT and Marrakesh Agreement that lead to the establishment of WTO.

The DoC had sent out notices to 313 Indian shrimp exporters to furnish details of the quantity and value of their exports on the basis of the lists forwarded by the Southern Shrimp Alliance [SSA], an organisation of domestic shrimp manufacturers, and Louisiana Shrimp Association. If the companies fail to present the details, then they will have to pay a higher duty based on 'Adverse Facts Available'.

The US customs had also imposed continuous bond requirement on importers of certain frozen shrimp from these countries.

On February 1, 2005, DoC imposed definitive anti-dumping measures and required importers to make cash deposit equal to the estimated weighted average of the dumping margins. So, importers were forced to comply with the continuous bond requirement to continue purchasing shrimp from other countries.