India to benefit from high shrimp duty on Vietnam

In a fillip to the Indian marine industry, the US Department of Commerce (DoC) has maintained 25.76 per cent of anti-dumping duty on shrimp imports from Vietnam, which is higher than the duty on Indian exports.

The DoC had recently reduced the anti-dumping duty imposed on India to 7.22 per cent from 7.54 per cent. This gap will provide an advantage to the Indian exporters and to re-export shrimp from Vietnam.

Only two Vietnamese companies, Viet Hai Company and Grobest, will enjoy the benefit of 0 per cent tax rate according to the first administrative review. Earlier these companies had to pay 4.57 per cent.

At the end of 2004, 54 Vietnamese companies listed as the defendants in the anti-dumping case and were imposed duty in the range of 4.3-25.76 per cent. In April 2006, the DoC announced that it would review the tax rates initially imposed on Vietnam's shrimps and the products from five other countries. In mid-June 2006, 19 Vietnamese companies reached an out-of-court settlement with the Southern Shrimp Alliance (SSA), the original petitioners of the case, under which the plaintiff withdrew the proposal for the administration review on the products of these enterprises. In July 2006, the DoC announced the change of compulsory defendants from Amanda Foods, Phuong Nam and Fimex to Kigimex, Fish One and Seaprodex Hanoi.