U.S. mulls anti-subsidy lawsuit against Vietnam shrimp

07/01/2013 12:00 - 490 Views

HCMC – A group of U.S. companies last week filed an anti-subsidy lawsuit against warm-water shrimp products imported from Vietnam, China, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, India and Ecuador, the law firm Mayer Brown JSM said.

The anti-subsidy action is considered on top of the anti-dumping tax on warm-water shrimp of Vietnam currently imposed by the U.S.

The U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) will soon launch an investigation to find out whether Vietnamese shrimp enterprises have received subsidies from the Government or not. If the subsidies were found, DOC would impose an additional anti-subsidy tariff on shrimp imports from Vietnam.

The plaintiff is the Coalition of Gulf Shrimp Industries. At present, total import value of warm-water shrimp from the seven nations accounts for 85% of the total shrimp import stateside, and over three-fourths of the U.S. market, according to the coalition.

In 2011 alone, the U.S. spent US$4.2 billion importing shrimp from the seven countries and the shrimp volume made up 76.1% of the U.S. market and was 86.3% of the total value of warm-water shrimp imported into the nation.

From November 2011 to October 2012, Thailand accounted for 28.03% of the States’ total shrimp import spending while Ecuador gained 15.59%, Indonesia 14.8%, India 12.29%, Vietnam 8.02%, Malaysia 4.49% and China 3.31%.

The plaintiff accused that shrimp of the seven exporting countries has been imported into the U.S. at lower prices than local products.

The U.S. had been the second largest importer of Vietnamese shrimp after Japan in January-November 2012, according to the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers. The country’s shrimp exports to the U.S.

brought home more than US$425.5 million in the period, slipping 15.6% year-on-year and accounting for 20.5% of the total shrimp export turnover.

, January 6, 2013,19:38 (GMT+7)

By Tran Thu

Source: The Saigon Times Daily