Shrimp exporters face US non-tariff barrier

In a move than can affect India’s exports, the Donald Trump administration in the US has imposed a non-tariff barrier by including shrimp in its Seafood Import Monitoring Program (SIMP), which is about monitoring the quality of imports.

The US is the largest market for the $5-billion Indian seafood sector.

Earlier the US had imposed an anti-dumping duty. Although this duty on India is not high, it exports shrimp to the US via Vietnam, which is facing high anti-dumping duties.

The US recently enhanced the anti-dumping duty (preliminary) to 25.39 per cent on products from Vietnam from 4.8 per cent last year. India largely exports block frozen shrimp to Vietnam for reprocessing and shipment to China, Japan, the European Union (EU), and the US. So shrimp from India will face antidumping duties in addition to quality control measures under the SIMP.

Even the EU had said that India should monitor the primary production of shrimp before exporting. The SIMP requires information on imported seafood from the time of the capture of the fish to the point of first sale in the US. This thwarts Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing activity. It will come into effect on January 1, 2019.

Indian exporters are facing lower international shrimp prices due to the glut in supply.

“SIMP is a kind of the non-tariff barrier on shrimp exporters. The US being the largest market for Indian exports, exports are likely to be hit. The move of the Trump administration may be to provide domestic players a level playing field,” said an exporter.

In recent years, Indian seafood exports have been driven by shrimp, the revenue from which grew at 21 per cent and 31 per cent in 2016-17 and 2017-18. According CRISIL, the US, the world’s leading seafood importer, accounted for 31 per cent of India’s exports in the last fiscal year, and for 28 per cent of Vietnam’s.