Trade complaint against Australia
The government will this month lodge a complaint with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) against Australia's pending unfair trade practice against imported shrimp, including from Thailand.
Trade Negotiations Department director-general Chutima Bunyapraphasara yesterday said a negotiating team would hold talks with shrimp buyers in Australia this week, in order to put pressure on their government to cancel the soon-to-be launched stricter requirements for imported shrimp. The department will raise the issue during the WTO's Sanitary and Phytosanitary Committee meeting, to be held from February 28 to March 1 in Geneva. The Australian measures will be a setback to the Kingdom's shrimp exports. The restrictions were drawn up by Biosecurity Australia after the government there claimed it would protect its consumers from disease-carrying shrimp and its farmers from surging imports. Under the stringent regulations, Australia requires shrimp to be boiled at 85 degrees Celsius and inspected for disease by agencies in the country. At present, Australia allows Thailand's Fisheries Department to inspect export quality. But Thai exporters will soon have to shoulder higher costs. Australia decided to crack down on shrimp imports after it found five diseases were widely distributed in the country. However, it has held public hearings on the impact of the new rules on its trading partners' exports. Chutima said shrimp exports have been carefully examined by the Fisheries Department without any record of the diseases widespread in consuming countries. Thailand is one of the major suppliers to Australia of frozen and processed shrimp, worth Bt2.29 billion last year.
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