WASHINGTON — Shrimp imports from Indonesia and Thailand will not be subject to anti-subsidy tariffs, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced Tuesday.
The Commerce Department’s decision came just hours after the U.S. International Trade Commission held a hearing for its investigation into whether or not subsidized frozen warmwater shrimp imports from seven countries – China, Ecuador, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam – are causing material injury to the U.S. shrimp industry.
While the trade commission looked at the degree of harm suffered by domestic shrimpers as a result of the subsidized imports, the Commerce Department was conducting a complementary but separate inquiry into the level of subsidies each country is giving to its shrimp industry.
The Commerce Department determined that Indonesia and Thailand provided subsidies of less than 2 percent to their shrimping industries, which the agency said were not large enough to warrant countervailing duties.
Both Commerce and the trade commission have to arrive at an affirmative decision before countervailing duties can be applied to a particular country, according to Peg O’Laughlin, a spokeswoman for the trade commission.
Because of the Commerce Department decision, shrimp imports from those two countries will escape being taxed irrespective of the findings from the USITC’s investigation.
For the five other countries, the Commerce Department found subsidy levels ranging from 5 to 55 percent. They are:
- Malaysia: 55 percent
- China: 18 percent
- Ecuador: Up to 14 percent
- India: Up to 11 percent
- Vietnam: Up to 8 percent
The trade commission is expected to vote Sept. 19 on whether to set countervailing duties for shrimp imports from those five countries. The amount of duties applied would be based on the Commerce Department’s determination for the level of subsidies that a country is giving.
In a statement Tuesday, the Coalition of Gulf Shrimp Industries, which represents producers from Mississippi, Texas, Florida, Alabama and Louisiana, said the low subsidy levels found for China, Ecuador, India and Vietnam could be “problematic for the low-margin shrimp industry.”
According to coalition lawyer Elizabeth Drake, U.S. producers earned only 25 cents on each pound of shrimp last year as a result of cheaper subsidized foreign imports driving down prices.
The U.S. imports six to eight pounds of shrimp for each pound that is domestically produced. In 2011, the country imported $5.2 billion of shrimp, according to National Marine Fisheries Service. Around one-third of that came from Thailand, while 12 percent originated from Indonesia.
Interactive Graph: Roll over chart for how much shrimp (in $billion) each country exported to the U.S. in 2011.