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The US Department of Commerce (DOC) announced on Wednesday it would postpone publicising preliminary tariffs levied on shrimp from six countries in South America and Asia until July from the previously announced date, June 8.
Tariffs for China and Viet Nam will be made public on July 6 while those for Brazil, Ecuador, Thailand and India will be delayed until July 29.
The tariffs for both groups will not be implemented until officially published in the Federal Register, one week from each announcement.
The DOC’s decision received a warm response from the Shrimp Task Force, an organisation established by the Consuming Industries Trade Action Coalition (CITAC) and the American Seafood Distributors Association (ASDA) to defend foreign countries from dumping allegations.
Wally Stevens, chairman of the task force, said he was confident that if government officials analyse this case fairly and objectively, they will find that no dumping has taken place.
American shrimpers have pushed the DOC into investigating claims that the six countries were dumping excessive amounts of product onto the US market driving down the price of US produced seafood. The International Trade Commission found the six nations last year exported shrimp worth US$2.4 billion to the US, accounting for 86.7 per cent of sales.
VNS - (24/05/2004)
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