India is planning for a potential legal fight against a US move this week to limit shrimp imports from six nations including India, officials said on Friday.
The US International Trade Commission gave preliminary approval on Tuesday to impose anti-dumping duties on billions of dollars of shrimp imports from Asia and Latin America.
"The seafood exporters association has hired a US law firm to fight the battle and the government will assist with all possible measures to defeat the US move", Jose Cyriac, chairman of India's state-run Marine Products Export Development Authority, told Reuters in the southern port city of Cochin.
Cyriac said Indian exporters had expected such action from the United States, where trade had become an emotional issue in an election year.
Indian officials said US investigations would precede any possible legal dispute.
The US panel said there was a reasonable indication that lower-priced, pond-raised shrimps from Brazil, China, Ecuador, India, Thailand and Vietnam were hurting the US industry. The United States mostly harvests shrimp from the sea.
"We have enough evidence to prove that we are not dumping cheap below our cost of production," Cyriac said. "If we lose the rounds in the US, we always have the option of going to an international forum to fight our case, but the process in the US could take some time."
ANOTHER VOTE PENDING: The US vote, which came after lobbying by shrimp harvesters from eight states, clears the way for its Commerce Department to set preliminary duties in early June to offset the alleged "dumping", which refers to products being sold below costs.
A surge in imports between 2000 and 2002 led to massive job losses and cut the value of the US shrimp harvest from $1.25 billion to $560 million, US industry officials say.
The six targeted nations exported $2.35 billion worth of shrimp to the United States in 2002. Thailand was the largest supplier, followed by China and Vietnam.
The US panel, which will vote again on the anti-dumping issue in late August, can reverse its decision. In New Delhi, a Commerce Ministry spokeswoman said the government would back the seafood exporters. "The government and exporters are fully geared up to fight out the case," she said.
A.J. Tharakan, president of the Indian Seafood Exporters Association, said he was confident of winning the next round, as Indian producers got better prices than shrimps from nations like Japan.
India exported marine goods worth $1.42 billion in the year to March 2003, some 82 percent of this from captive aqua-culture. The United States accounted for about 30 percent of the revenue.
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