Vietnam ’s Directorate of Fisheries has voiced its strong opposition to
the US Department of Commerce’s decision to choose Indonesia as the
sole benchmark country to calculate the anti-dumping rate on Vietnam
’s tra fish, saying that it will bring the case to the US Court of
International Trade.
The directorate’s Deputy Director General Pham Anh Tuan made the statement at a recent interview with Vietnam News Agency.
The move follows a decision on March 14 by the department in the 8th
Administrative Review of the anti-dumping duty order on Certain Catfish
Fillets from Vietnam . Under the decision, if made public in the US
Office of the Federal Register, Vietnam ’s tra fish exporters would
have to pay much higher duties, from a minimum of 0.19 USD up to
0.77-3.87 USD per a kilo.
“It is unfair for the
department to replace Bangladesh with Indonesia as the reference
country to calculate the anti-dumping tax levels on Vietnam’s imported
tra fish as Vietnam and Indonesia do not share similarities in
comparable social-economic conditions, pricing and financial data, or
have comparable subjects or fish species,” Tuan said.
According to Tuan, the directorate’s members and their lawyers will
use these three differences as a legal foundation to file their
responses to the lawsuit.
To avoid such a case, the
official suggested that in the department’s next administrative review,
Vietnam should take a hard line on the US ’ selection of the third
reference country to value Vietnamese tra fish inputs on the basis of
the most appropriate criteria.
He also called on
domestic farmers, processors and exporters, especially those subject to
the new decision, to stay calm to solve the issue, while drawing up
marketing plans to move into emerging markets other than traditional
channels like the US .
In 2012, Vietnam tra fish exports
to 142 countries and territories generated 1.74 billion USD in revenue,
according to the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and
Processors (VASEP).
Exports to the US brought
home 358 million USD, over 20 percent of the country’s total export
revenue, said the association.
Apart from the US ,
Vietnamese exporters are reaching out to new markets in Eastern Europe,
the Commonwealth of Independent States and Mediterranean countries.-VNA