Catfish fillets from Vietnam. (Photo: Stock File)

Anti-dumping duty rates violate agreement: VASEP

VIET NAM
Wednesday, September 22, 2010, 03:50 (GMT + 9)

The US Department of Commerce (DOC) has increased anti-dumping tariffs on its imports of Vietnamese pangasius in its preliminary results, even though it clashes with the free trade agreements between the two countries, the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP) has informed. Last week, VASEP thus sent an open letter to the Vietnamese Government and the US Ambassador in Vietnam voicing offense and concern over the Department’s preliminary anti-dumping duty rates in the sixth administrative review applied to Vietnam’s tra frozen fillet exports to the US.

The duty rates exceed 100 per cent, which surpasses all prior rates. This nearly nine-year-old anti-dumping case is unfair and the new rates obviously represent a punitive tariff, the association complained.

The calculated dumping rates are not supported by the evidence and data submitted for the review, VASEP said, VOVNews reports.

Particularly, there was concern regarding DOC’s allegedly unjustified and sudden change in the surrogate country used from Bangladesh to the Philippines, after having constantly rejected the Philippines in all prior administrative reviews due to the poor quality of the pricing data, lack of publicly available data, tiny size of the Philippine catfish industry and because the Philippines has not exported pangasius products.

VASEP believes the Catfish Farmers of America’s (CFA) recent lobbying efforts have influenced DOC’s move, and that it will harm US consumers.

“The US consumers will have to pay twice as much at USD 7-USD 8 per kg, instead of the USD 3- USD 4 currently. I don’t think they will have enough money to buy Vietnamese tra fish,” said VASEP VP Nguyen Huu Dung.

“Therefore, Vietnamese businesses won’t export enough products to the market,” he added.

VASEP along with individual fish processors and exporters asked the Vietnamese Government to comprehensively review the injurious effects of the decision and to urge DOC and the US administration to reassess it, so it will not harm the countries’ bilateral relations.

Dung said VASEP as well as companies will defend their industry by fighting back through essential legal action to ask DOC to modify its results of the sixth administrative review, which are expected to be presented next March per US law and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) agreement.

VASEP and Vietnamese businesses are completing practical data on pangasius prices to establish that Vietnam did not dump its tra fish on the US market. The information will be sent to the US in October.

Both parties will discuss the matter at a meeting in November.

Meanwhile, VASEP has sent two of Vietnam’s main tra fish exporters, Vinh Hoan and Hung Vuong, to the US to meet American lawyers for consultation.

Vietnam’s pangasius export earnings from the US are calculated at USD 1 billion in the first nine months of the year, VASEP said, and USD 1.5 billion for the whole year. The US is the second biggest consumer of tra fish after the European Union (EU).

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- Anti-dumping tariffs on pangasius rocket
- Anti-dumping tariffs raised on Vietnamese shrimp

By Natalia Real
[email protected]
www.seafood.media

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