Vietnamese Firms Warned of Trade Barriers in Foreign Markets

Vietnamese Firms Warned of Trade Barriers in Foreign Markets

Vietnam’s Ministry of Trade (MoT) has urged local exporters to improve their understanding of trade barriers, which are applied by import countries to protect their domestic production, in a bid to increase the country’s export turnover.

Deputy Trade Minister Luong Van Tu said a combination of reduced consumption demands in the world market, and trade barriers which include tariffs, have caused poor growth of Vietnam’s key export commodities in the first quarter of this year.

Vietnam’s earnings from exports of garments and textiles, and footwear increased by only 2.9 per cent and 3.6 per cent on-year in the first three months of the year, the MoT’s statistics revealed.

Tu said there has been a mounting trend of trade protection in the world. The US, for example, has classified its trading partners into several groups to apply different preferential tariff policies as well the imposition of anti-dumping tariffs on export commodities with high growth rates, large market shares and low price.

To deal with the trade barriers, the senior official advised domestic firms to pay attention to regulations applied by import countries to protect its domestic producers.

The exporters also need to diversify markets as this will mean the companies will not depend a handful of markets, especially if they have to suffer anti-dumping tariffs, Tu explained.

However, Tu also urged relevant authorities and professional associations to gather information related to Vietnam’s export markets in order to warn exporters, helping them avoid trade litigation.

Tu believed that it was due to a timely warning that the country’s footwear industry avoided an anti-dumping lawsuit in the European market last year.

Vietnam posted total export revenues of US$6.72 billion in the first three months of this year, up 16.2 per cent against the same period last year.

The MoT forecast Vietnam can reach an export turnover of US$31.5 billion this year, up 19 per cent on-year.

VNS