Increasing Challenges for Vietnamese Catfish Exporters

According to Dr Trang, this is a regular administrative review activity in the framework of the annual anti-dumping measures applicable to catfish which were introduced in 2003.

 

Not necessarily. In every annual batch check, businesses struggle to get the most applicable tax rate for the next year. So, through every check, enterprises are required active participation to protect themselves. However, this is not the first administrative review for catfish products, so Vietnamese businesses have a lot of experience in things like this, they should not be unprepared.

 

This review phase of the US Department of Commerce for Vietnam's catfish has one remarkable thing: it is the catfish producers of the United States that asked the Ministry of Commerce to use the data on production costs in Indonesia or the Philippines (instead of Bangladesh) to calculate the margin of dumping and anti-dumping tariffs on Vietnam catfish (using data from another country that is not Vietnam is the way that United States still uses, reasoning that Vietnam is not market economy). This means that these businesses have to fight, to prove and convince the US Department of Commerce not to accept the proposal of the plaintiff, because if they use data from Indonesia or the Philippines, the tax may be "bulging" significantly.

 

However, this is not a new issue, nor more serious than what the Vietnamese enterprises had to face in the previous review. The risk may be greater so enterprises need more efforts. Moreover, in the context of Vietnam’s catfish sector facing difficulty, this will increase the challenges that companies must overcome.

 

Anti-dumping and anti-subsidy, referred as trade remedies, are seen as a tool that many importing countries are using. In the context of tariff and non-tariff barriers being phased out under free trade agreements and bilateral trade agreements, trade remedy instruments become more expensive in the hands of domestic production enterprises.

 

Furthermore, the economic recession in many markets, the increase in the intrinsic difficulties of domestic industry in these countries makes it likely that trade remedy measures are abused in the form of disguised protection. This has been shown in international commercial practice over the years. With an export-oriented economy, this is a dangerous barrier.

 

To remove this barrier, it is necessary to understand the nature of trade remedy measures and appropriate ways to cope with them. Excessive worry or giving up is not a solution. Aggressive opposition, speaking alone or quietly ignoring is not solution either. It is expected that Vietnamese exporters understand that this is a potential risk and take these matters into their business strategy for the best preparation. What businesses can do now is to standardize, clarify the system of books, documents, regularly monitor the export markets and work closely with professional counsel units to get ready for unexpected incidents.