WTO will rule in Thai shrimp row
Thailand has filed its first submission against the United States with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) dispute-settlement body, accusing Washington of unfair trade practices by slapping an anti-dumping duty on Thai shrimp.
The formal complaint was sent to the WTO in Geneva, Switzerland, last week. The WTO will open the opportunity for all parties to comment in early May, then it will call for a hearing of third-party opinions by the middle of May. The circulation of the final report is expected by November. Thailand has argued that the US improperly calculates anti-dumping rates through a complicated procedure known as "zeroing". It also claims procedures for paying the levies resulted in the overcharging of exporters. Although the US has called for the Thai government to separate the anti-dumping and zeroing disputes to the WTO, Thailand will move ahead on filing both petitions. Washington has accepted that it will lose the "zeroing" case after WTO panels found that zeroing leads to artificial and inflated margins of dumping, and thus higher duties, Winichai Chaemchaeng, deputy director-general of the Trade Negotiations Department, said yesterday. "The petition will take about 12 to 14 months to reach a final WTO judgement, with a positive signal that Thailand will win the case," he said. If Bangkok prevails, Washington will be forced to cancel its current measures and other shrimp-exporting countries could benefit. However, Thailand might find it difficult to force the US to cancel its unfair trade practice. The US might not follow the WTO's ruling and then Thailand has to take measures to hit back at the US unfair practice, Winichai said. The US is the largest market, taking 55 per cent of Thai shrimp exports worth US$519.8 million (Bt18.18 billion) last year, which was up 68.1 per cent from the previous year. The US also requires a continuous bond (C-bond) on shrimp exports from countries subject to anti-dumping duties of 5.79 to 6.82 per cent of a shipment's value. The C-bond - a 100-per-cent bank guarantee - results in double trade protection measures against Thai shrimp exports. Last year, Thai exporters paid $100 million for C-bond guarantees and have yet to receive the bank guarantees in return. The case is the first petition to the WTO filed by a shrimp-exporting nation suffering from the double penalty, although India, China, Ecuador and Vietnam are in the same boat. Petchanet Pratruangkrai The Nation
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