SSA files antidumping petition against 6 countries

The Southern Shrimp Alliance has filed antidumping petition against Brazil, China, Ecuador, India, Thailand and Vietnam. The filing came on the last of 2003, ending months of suspense.

The broad coverage of frozen and canned warm water shrimps brings entire spectrum of shrimp exports from these nations within the ambit of investigation.

The focus now shifts to Department of Commerce which must decide in next 20 days whether the petition should be accepted and investigation initiated. The DOC verifies whether the petitioners have furnished enough information to make out adequate case and whether the petition has support of the industry.

These countries get an opportunity to contest the support of industry for the petition. The DOC may take another 20 days if it wants to verify industry support by polling or otherwise.

If the DOC initiates the petition, the scene moves to the International Trade Commission, which will hold a staff conference on 21st day. After this, ITC will preliminarily determine if there is material injury to the U.S domestic industry on account of shrimp imports.

If the ITC says yes in the next 24 days, that is, within 45 days of filing petition, then the DOC will take up further investigation.

The petitioners have alleged substantial dumping by the six countries and placed the dumping margin between 30 percent and 267 percent. This becomes significant because the ITC, for its preliminary determination, looks also at these alleged margins.

worldseafoodmarket.com