Vietnam puts high hope on sunset review to regain US plastics market

Vietnam puts high hope on sunset review to regain US plastics market

Vietnamese plastics manufacturers hope they can regain the US market after it was dislodged from the market five years ago.

The Vietnam Plastics Association (VPA) on January 9, 2014, said it is preparing necessary documents for the upcoming working session with the US agencies on the sunset review, slated for this year. This would put an end to the five-year anti-dumping duty imposition on PE bags imported from Vietnam.

With the high anti-dumping tax rates of 52.3-76.11 percent, Vietnamese PE bags can find no way to enter the US market, which means that it has lost the US market, the second biggest market, over the last few years.

According to VPA, the sunset review means that the US would reconsider if it continues or stops imposing the anti-dumping taxes on Vietnam’s PE bags.

Ho Duc Lam, Chair of VPA, stressed it is now the important moment for Vietnam to seek the opportunities to request the US International Trade Commission (ITC) and the Department of Commerce (DOC) to reconsider the taxation. This is also the opportunity to prove that Vietnamese PE bags in no way harm the benefits of the US manufacturers in the same field and that Vietnamese do not dump the products in the US.

However, the sunset review would not be automatically applied if the US agencies do not receive the request on the review from the enterprises of the countries that bear the taxes.

In case Vietnam does not request the sunset review, it is very likely that the current anti-dumping tax rates may be applied for the next five-year period, according to Lam.

Vietnamese plastics manufacturers have always been striving to conquer the US market, even though China surpassed the US in 2013 to become the second largest export market for Vietnam.

Huynh Thi My, VPA’s Secretary General, said China is a newly emerging market with the high growth rate in recent years, but Vietnamese enterprises should not focus on it for sustainable development.

My said China has surpassed the US to become the second largest export market because the exports to the US now bear anti-dumping tax. Moreover, the exports to China can be the products made at Chinese invested factories in Vietnam and exported back to China.

Meanwhile, the US market, though having witnessed decreases, is hoped to bounce back if the anti-dumping duties are removed.

Tran Viet Anh, General Director of Nam Thai Son Company, confirmed that exporters put a high hope on the US market, believing that the market would open again to Vietnamese in the near future.

If the US removes the anti-dumping tax as expected, Vietnam would see big changes with the export markets in 2014.

According to Viet Anh, the US demand is even higher than Japan, which is now the biggest market, and easier to be pleased. However, the US market, once consumed 40 percent of PE bag exports, worth $79 million, has been closed to Vietnam since 2009 with the anti-dumping tax.

As for Chinese products, as the production cost has increased sharply, Chinese products have been not cheap any more. The exports to the market, mostly kitchenware, plastic plates…, are believed to witness the 14-16 percent growth rate in the next few years.

vietnamnet