*EPF207 02/17/2004
U.S. Trade Panel Advances Shrimp Dumping Investigation
(Six countries from Asia, Latin America affected by USITC ruling) (280)

Washington -- The U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) has ruled to continue a dumping investigation into U.S. imports of frozen and canned warm-water shrimp and prawns from Brazil, Ecuador, India, China, Thailand and Vietnam.

In a February 17 preliminary determination, the commissioners voted 6-0 that evidence of injury to the U.S. industry is sufficient to let the case continue. A negative determination would have ended the case in the first phase.

Imposition of antidumping duties requires final affirmative determinations both from the Department of Commerce that dumping occurred and from the USITC that the imports injured or threatened U.S. industry.

A preliminary Commerce determination is expected by June 8.

Dumping is the import of goods at a price below the home-market or a third-country price or below the cost of production.

In 2002 U.S. imports of shrimp and prawns from the six countries amounted to $2,353 million, with Thailand and Vietnam the biggest exporters.

American shrimp farmers, who formed an ad hoc committee to file a case, have claimed that the foreign exporters dumped shrimp on the American market, depressing sales of U.S.-harvested shrimp from $1.25 billion in 2000 to $559 million in 2002.

Vietnamese shrimp exporters condemned the Commerce Department's January decision to launch the investigation.

Seafood is the second major source of foreign earnings for Vietnam, after crude oil.

In July 2003, when the USITC imposed antidumping duties on imports of Vietnamese frozen catfish fillets, that decision also was met with protests from Vietnamese farmers and officials.

(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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