The U.S. Department of Commerce announced in Fridayâ??s Federal Register that it dropped 114 Indian companies from the list of foreign shrimp exporters subject to the administrative review of tariffs.
Enacted in early 2005, the tariffs stem from the antidumping petition the Southern Shrimp Alliance, an eight-state group of shrimp fishermen and processors, filed in late 2003.
Last April, the DOC initiated an administrative review of 313 Indian shrimp exporters for the period of Feb. 1, 2006, to Jan. 31, 2007. But on Friday, the agency cancelled the review of 114 exporters citing four reasons: withdrawal of review requests, confirmation of no shipments during the review period, inability to locate companies and duplicated names in the initiation notice.
The DOC reduced the tariff on Indian shrimp exporters from 10.54 percent to 7.22 percent last September. Companies that didn't participate in the review received a tariff of 82.3 percent.
Also in Friday's Federal Register, the DOC announced that it extended to April 7 its deadline for the results of the administrative review of tariffs on Chinese crawfish exporters. The results were due to be published on Wednesday. The administrative-review period is from Sept. 1, 2005, to Aug. 31, 2006.
Tariffs on Chinese crawfish exporters have been in place since 1997.
