Members of the American shrimp processors association have filed a new countervailing duty petition targeting shrimp imports from seven countries: Thailand, Vietnam, China, India, Indonesia, Ecuador and Malaysia. The petition is controversial within the domestic industry, and the Southern Shrimp Alliance has indicated the processors may not have standing to represent the whole industry. If the petition goes forward, it will become another major and potentially expensive headache for shrimp importers and producers.

Companies in the Coalition of Gulf Shrimp Industries that filed the countervailing lawsuit last week have received over $111 million in payouts from the Byrd Amendment - more than the entire gross profit of the industry for the last three years. Reading the actual filing, some financial red flags jump out. The losses or injury claimed by the domestic processors is entirely due to an unexplained $10 million jump in administrative and sales expenses between 2011 and 2012, year to date through September. We discuss this issue in our video and story - and suggest that spending some of the $111 million marketing Gulf shrimp may have be a better course than a countervailing duty suit.

Shrimp importers and producers have only one week to fill out questionnaires about their use of shrimp involved in the countervailing duty suit.  The 36 page questionnaires, which the OMB says will take one employee 40 hours to fill out, are due next Friday, January 11th.  This whole thing is on an extremely fast timetable.

India will send a delegation of professionals, including MPEDA officials and members of the Seafood Exporters Association (SEA) to the US next week after a move by the US Gulf shrimp industry to impose countervailing duties on shrimp imports.  According to the Norbert Karikkassery, President of the SEA, the proposed move would be ‘a big blow’ to India’s seafood exports that have already declined in volumes and values in 2012.