Members of the
American shrimp processors association have filed a new countervailing duty
petition targeting shrimp imports from seven countries: Thailand, Vietnam, China, India, Indonesia, Ecuador and Malaysia. The
petition is controversial within the domestic industry, and the Southern Shrimp
Alliance has indicated the processors may not have standing to represent the
whole industry. If the petition goes forward, it will become another major and
potentially expensive headache for shrimp importers and producers.
Companies in
the Coalition of Gulf Shrimp Industries that filed the countervailing lawsuit
last week have received over $111 million in payouts from the Byrd Amendment -
more than the entire gross profit of the industry for the last three years.
Reading the actual filing, some financial red flags jump out. The losses or
injury claimed by the domestic processors is entirely due to an unexplained $10
million jump in administrative and sales expenses between 2011 and 2012, year
to date through September. We discuss this issue in our video and story - and
suggest that spending some of the $111 million marketing Gulf shrimp may have
be a better course than a countervailing duty suit.
Shrimp
importers and producers have only one week to fill out questionnaires about
their use of shrimp involved in the countervailing duty suit. The 36 page
questionnaires, which the OMB says will take one employee 40 hours to fill out,
are due next Friday, January 11th. This whole thing is on an extremely
fast timetable.
India will send a
delegation of professionals, including MPEDA officials and members of the
Seafood Exporters Association (SEA) to the US next week after a move by the US
Gulf shrimp industry to impose countervailing duties on shrimp imports.
According to the Norbert Karikkassery, President of the SEA, the proposed move
would be ‘a big blow’ to India’s
seafood exports that have already declined in volumes and values in 2012.
