FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE	Contact:	Amanda Lahan
June 18, 2007		The PBN Company
		Tel.

CITAC APPLAUDS PRELIMINARY COMMERCE DEPT. RULING TO END ZEROING IN ECUADOR SHRIMP DUMPING CASE

Washington, DC — The Consuming Industries Trade Action Coalition (CITAC) today applauded the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) preliminary decision to comply with a World Trade Organization ruling to end the use of "zeroing" in calculating dumping margins on imported shrimp from Ecuador. The DOC decision reduces the dumping margins to below two percent, meaning the duties will be revoked.

CITAC Executive Director Steve Alexander called the revocation of the duties on shrimp from Ecuador "an important example of how the elimination of zeroing will ensure that U.S. companies stop paying unnecessary import duties by compelling a more accurate calculation of duty margins."

The Commerce Department preliminary decision to eliminate the antidumping duty on frozen warmwater shrimp imported from Ecuador follows a World Trade Organization ruling that the practice of zeroing violates U.S. trade obligations. Without the margin-inflating effect of zeroing, dumping duties on shrimp from Ecuador became de minimus. A final ruling is expected in August.

Zeroing refers to the treatment of U.S. export sales when they are compared to "normal value" — or the foreign value — of similar goods in the calculation of dumping margins. When the DOC finds transactions in the U.S. that occur at prices that are higher than normal value, it chooses to ignore those sales rather than averaging them into the final dumping calculations. By reducing the impact of those transactions on the final calculations, zeroing results in artificially inflated dumping margins.

"Zeroing hurts our competitiveness and costs consuming industries millions of dollars," continued Alexander. "If shrimp from Ecuador turns out not to subject to dumping duties once the numbers are fairly calculated, it begs the question how many other imported products are carrying a hidden tax? U.S. trade policy should do everything it can to promote fairness and to benefit U.S. businesses."

CITAC is a coalition of companies and organizations committed to promoting a trade arena where U.S. consuming industries and their workers have access to global markets for imports that enhance the international competitiveness of American firms. For additional information, visit citac.info or contact Amanda Lahan at The PBN Company at or .