China and Vietnam hammered by DOC in antidumping case
The U.S. Department of Commerce announced Tuesday that Chinese and Vietnamese shrimp is being dumped on the U.S. market and prescribed preliminary duties ranging from 7.67 percent to 112.81 percent for imports from China and 12.11 percent to 93.13 percent for imports from Vietnam.

The Commerce Department also said that the duties would be 90 days retroactive for certain Chinese exporters. The duties apply to canned and frozen warm water shrimp. The SSA sought duties ranging from 119 percent to 267 percent for certain Chinese shrimp products and 30 to 99 percent duties on Vietnamese shrimp.

Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Import Administration James Jochum explained that there are three tiers of companies from both countries for which duties will apply.

For Vietnam, the top four companies, representing 36 percent of that country’s shrimp exports to the US market, will receive dumping margins of 12 percent to 20 percent.

The second tier of 17 companies represent 42 percent of the volume of shrimp exported to the US market and will have a 16 percent margin applied.

In China, the four main exporters, which account for 43 percent of Chinese shrimp exports to the US market, received duties of 0 percent to 98 percent.

Jochum said the wide disparity in dumping duties is because two of the companies had lower costs of production because they were vertically integrated – one received a 0 tariff rate and the other a 7 percent tariff rate. The other two received duties in excess of 90 percent.

The next tier of 21 companies represented 36 percent of Chinese exports and were assessed a 49 percent dumping duty.

The last tier of Chinese firms represent 22 percent of the US export shrimp volume were assessed a duty of 112 percent.

The federal government is now seeking comments on the preliminary determinations and will make a final determination on or about November 24.

If the Commerce Department makes a final affirmative determination in either or both investigations, the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) is scheduled to make its final injury determinations on or about January 8, 2005.

If the ITC makes a final affirmative determination that imports are materially injuring, or threatening to materially injure, the domestic shrimp industry, the Commerce Department will issue antidumping duty orders and will instruct US Customs and Border Protection to start collecting cash deposits on shrimp imports.

Chinese shrimp imports to the U.S. market skyrocketed in 2004 to 178.6 million pounds – a 64 percent increase over the volume in 2002. For the first four months of 2003, Chinese shrimp imports were up 57 percent in volume over the same period last year.

The Commerce Department will make a separate decision on July 28 on whether to impose tariffs on shrimp from Thailand, Ecuador, Brazil and India. China and Vietnam were singled out because they are not free market-based economies.