Hiked U.S. anti-dumping duty on frozen shrimps to impact India’s seafood export?

1. Hiked U.S. duty drawback to impact India’s seafood exports? 2015 saw seafood exports touch an all-time high. India earned Rs 33,441.61 crore for the year 2014-15, displaying a growth of 11%. Export volumes also showed an increase at 10,51,243 tonnes. Frozen shrimp was the leading export product under the seafood category. 3,57,505 tonnes of exported shrimp earned the nation $3.7 million. Marine Products Export Development Authority (MPEDA), the nodal agency that focuses on the promotion of marine products from India ecstatic about the impressive growth had set an export target of $6.6 billion for 2015-16. On the heels of this highly appreciated news came a disappointing update. Experts had predicted that India’s seafood exports were to drop 5-10 percent in FY-16. Reasons ranged from poor sea catch to climatic changes affecting the marine ecosystem. And the predictions came true. As per the estimates released by the industry, marine products export at 421,385 tonnes fell 14% in value and 4.5% in volume in the first half of 2015-16 in comparison to the previous year. Growth of frozen shrimps is expected to slow to single digits this fiscal. Poor global demand and production setbacks as a result of floods and disease are to blame. This is a cause for concern for as previously mentioned shrimp is the flagship seafood export product for India. Frozen shrimp accounted for 67% of the total export value last year. Another move that is sure to impact the already poor seafood export is the US government move to raise the anti-dumping duty on frozen shrimps imported from India. The preliminary average duty is now 4.89% as per the 10th annual review of dumping duties. It was 2.96 percent in the ninth review. The USA Department of Commerce recommends that

2. Falcon Marine’s duty be cut from 2.63% to 0.80%. Liberty group which was not previously included in the review now faces a preliminary duty of 8.32%. Needless to stress upon, exporters are wary of the move as U.S. is the top export market for Indian Shrimps. The nation accounts for 29% of seafood exports from India. "Lot of Indian exporters will switch to other markets which are erratic. It will not fetch better realizations. If alternative markets do not behave accordingly the exports market may crash. We have no other means but to passing it on the aquaculture farmers The exports may fall value wise", said Ajay Dash, president, the Seafood Exporters Association of India (SEAI), Odisha region. Ministry of commerce should come forward and take a delegation including the exporters to U.S. to sort out the issue, he added. There are chances that the final duties may not be the same as the preliminary duties. The final duties will be released in the Federal Register in July. Leading exporters are USA focused and have tuned their production line to suit the nation’s market. So a move like this will render seafood from India less competitive in pricing terms and cause the country to lose out to competitors from Vietnam, Indonesia and other countries, said Rajen Padhi (seafood trader). Vietnam's average duty is pegged at 3.56%, unchanged from the ninth review. For Thailand, the new average preliminary duty is 1.36 per cent compared to 1.10 per cent in the ninth review per cent.