May 26, 2004

 

 

US Officials To Probe Shrimp Dumping Charge Against India

U.S. Department of Commerce officials will investigate whether Indian shrimp farms are unfairly exporting cheap products and undermining the U.S. shrimping industry, an Indian association spokesman said Tuesday.

 

A team of U.S. officials is scheduled to visit southern Kerala state in June or early July, said Sandu Joseph, secretary of India's Seafood Exporters Association.

 

"They will visit our shrimp-farming factories and verify our accounting practices. Our factories and accounts are open for them always. We want to prove that we are not producing and exporting cheap shrimp to the United States," Joseph told The Associated Press.

 

The association has been receiving "favorable support" from a group of U.S. congressmen to fight the antidumping investigations against India and five other countries, he said.

 

Joseph said more than a dozen members of Congress have written to Commerce Secretary Donald Evans asking him to use fair and reasonable procedures in the investigations.

 

The U.S. International Trade Commission ruled Feb. 17 that there was a "reasonable indication" that cheap shrimp imports from India, Brazil, China, Ecuador, Thailand and Vietnam have been hurting the U.S. shrimping industry.

 

The ruling came after a petition by the U.S. Southern Shrimp Alliance which alleged that shrimp imported from the six countries had slashed the value of U.S.-harvested shrimp by more than half between 2000 and 2002, from $1.25 billion to $560 million.

 

The alliance also claims that industry employment has dropped by 40%.

 

Ever since the antidumping investigations begun, Indian shrimp exports to the U.S. have practically stopped.

 

The U.S. is India's second-largest shrimp buyer after Japan.

 

Nearly a quarter of India's shrimp exporters' earnings of more than $1 billion come from U.S. imports.