Vietnam plays tough with US over catfish
Vietnam plays tough with US over catfish
Vietnam has filed a lawsuit against the US’ Department of Commerce for its allegedly unfair imposition of anti-dumping taxes on tra catfish exports.
Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP) general secretary Truong Dinh Hoe told VIR that 16 Vietnamese tra fish exporters had just lodged a complaint against the US’ Department of Commerce (DOC) to the US’ Court of International Trade. The lawsuit might last two or three years due to complicated procedures.
On March 14, DOC released final determination in the 8th administrative review (August 1, 2010-July 31, 2011) of the anti-dumping case on Vietnam’s fish fillets. Under the determination, DOC suddenly shifted the surrogate country to value inputs of raw materials used in Vietnam’s fish processing from Bangladesh to Indonesia.
“This action is unfair and we need to bring DOC to court to ensure Vietnamese exporters can receive equal treatment in the US market,” Hoe said. “We have evidence proving that DOC’s action is wrong and I would like to repeat that it is an unlawful and politically-motivated decision.” According to VASEP, because Vietnam was considered a “non-market economy” by the US government, DOC has used third country prices to value Vietnamese inputs.
Over the past eight years, DOC has used Bangladesh to value Vietnamese fish inputs, continually rejecting the Philippines and Indonesia due to the poor quality of pricing data. No material changes had been made to the review.
However, under the 8th administrative review, DOC used data from Indonesia to value Vietnamese inputs.
According to a VASEP statement, Bangladesh is farming pangasius hypophthalmus in ponds like Vietnam. Producers in Vietnam and Bangladesh share the reasonably comparable production cost and revenue, while Indonesia farms five different catfish species and there is even no specific data in Indonesia’s output of pangasius hypophthalmus.
Under DOC’s decision, the final duty rates for the reviewed Vietnamese companies averaged between $0.19 and $1.34 per kilogramme. These exceed 100 per cent in additional duties.
The two most severely affected companies are Vinh Hoan and Viet An. Specifically, while the Viet An tax rate augmented from $0.03 to $1.34 per kilogramme, that of Vinh Hoan climbed from $0 to $0.19 per kilogramme. The remaining companies will have an average tax rate of $0.77 per kilogramme, up 25.6 times.
Additionally, three new exporters An Phu, Docifish and Go Dang will also bear a high tax rate from $1.37 to $3.87 per kilogramme. Vietnam exports tra fish to 142 countries and territories.
The country last year earned $1.74 billion from tra fish exports, mainly from the EU with $425.8 million, with a 24.41 per cent market share.
vir
