Shrimp exporters face US countervailing duty (CVD) risk

DNHN - India, Ecuador, Indonesia and Vietnam are the four countries targeted by the US Department of Commerce (DOC) in this review, accounting for 90% of the 788,209 tonnes of shrimp imported into the US in 2023.

The Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP) cited sources from Undercurrentnews, a seafood industry magazine, that India, Ecuador and Vietnam, three of the US’s largest suppliers of farmed shrimp, were notified on 26 March that they could face preliminary countervailing duties (CVDs) ranging from less than 2% to as high as 196%.

However, Indonesia, the third-largest shrimp supplier to the US, was excluded from the review.

The US Department of Commerce (DOC) has begun summoning lists of exporters and petitioners to determine the duties, pending a full investigation into whether three of the four targeted countries have subsidised programmes that allow them to dump cheap shrimp into the US market, in violation of World Trade Organization (WTO) rules.

The duties will take effect once the DOC publishes them in the Federal Register, which is expected to happen in the coming days.

The duties will be refunded if investigators determine that the countries are not providing illegal subsidies, or if the subsidised imports are not harming the US shrimp industry. However, a final decision is not expected until the autumn or winter of 2024, meaning importers could be facing higher costs for much of the rest of the year.

Effective immediately upon the official announcement from the government, importers of shrimp from India will be required to post a cash deposit of 4.72% for shrimp from Devi Sea Foods, 3.89% from Sandhya Aqua Exports and 4.36% from all other Indian suppliers.

Importers of shrimp from Ecuador will be required to post a cash deposit of 13.41% for shrimp from Industrial Pesquera Santa Priscila, 1.69% from Sociedad Nacional de Galapagos (SONGA) and 7.55% from all other Ecuadorian suppliers.

For shrimp from Vietnam, the cash deposit requirement will be 2.84% for Stapimex, 196.41% for Thong Thuan and 2.84% for all other Vietnamese suppliers.

India, Ecuador, Indonesia and Vietnam are the four countries targeted by the DOC in this review, accounting for 90% of the 788,209 tonnes of shrimp imported into the US in 2023.

P.V