U.S. Warns Indonesia About Transshipping

U.S. trade officials have warned their Indonesian counterparts they must ensure shrimp isn't transshipped through Indonesia to avoid antidumping tariffs, Sumpeno Putro, regional trade advisor for the European Commission for Indonesia, told Asia Pulse today.

Transshipping is the illegal trade practice of exporting product from a country subject to tariffs through a country not subject to tariffs to avert paying the duties.

Indonesia is not among the six Asian and Latin American countries the United States hit with shrimp tariffs in early 2005, and, as a result, its shrimp exports to the United States nearly tripled from 47.8 million pounds in 2004 to 130.2 million pounds in 2007.

In 2005, U.S. trade officials suspected Indonesian exporters of transshipping Chinese shrimp, which is subject to tariffs. Some Thai shrimp exporters claim their businesses are hurting due to transshipping, citing Cambodia, Malaysia and Indonesia as potential violators.

The United States is due to conduct a sunset review of shrimp tariffs covering all shrimp-exporting countries in mid-2008, said Putro. Indonesia may be slapped with tariffs if it's unable to correlate its increase in shrimp exports with an increase in shrimp production, he added.

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