August 11, 2010

 

Vietnam shrimp exporters to plea anti-dumping tariffs

Some shrimp exporters are likely to petition against the results of the latest administrative review by the US Department of Commerce (DOC) on Vietnam's frozen shrimp, said VASEP vice chairman, Tran Van Linh.

 

DOC has released the results of the fourth administrative review, which has raised the tariff by a few percentage points. Accordingly, the tariff is raised from 2.50% to 5.58% on Nha Trang Corp., while other exporters suffered a rise of 1.3 points to 4.27%.

 

Linh's enterprise is among exporters who are imposed with the 4.27% punitive tariff. He found quite surprising because the tariff has been on the downtrend since last year.

 

"We're weighing the next step, including the possibility of appealing for a lower tariff. US importers are those who have to pay for the higher tariff but in fact, it will certainly make Vietnamese shrimp more expensive on the market," Linh said.

 

In late March, the World Trade Organization (WTO) agreed to investigate Vietnam's complaints against US anti-dumping measures imposed on some frozen warm-water shrimp and the use of zeroing for calculating the margin. Then the WTO Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) established a panel to examine Vietnam's complaint. This is the first time Vietnam has filed a complaint with WTO since joining the global trade body in January 2007.

 

The US has imposed the anti-dumping duties on Vietnam's frozen warm-water shrimp since 2005; which according to exporters, have eroded the competitiveness of Vietnamese products.