The US Department of Commerce (DOC) has issued its final determination
in the 8th administrative review of the antidumping case on fish
fillets, making an unlawful and politically motivated decision to levy
punitive duty rates on Vietnamese fish exporters in excess of 100
percent, according to the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and
Producers (VASEP).
In a press release posted on its website on
March 20, VASEP said this radical departure from eight years of legal
precedent relates to the use of a new surrogate country, Indonesia ,
to value inputs of raw materials used in fish processing. Because
Vietnam is considered to be a “non market economy” by the US
Government, the US DOC uses third country prices to value Vietnamese
inputs.
Indonesia has been rejected in prior reviews
due to poor data quality and lack of viable financial statements. The
DOC itself declared that Indonesia is not “economically comparable” to
Vietnam for a majority of the months covered by the review period,
and then barred Vietnam from citing to this decision on the
untenable position that it was “new information.”
In the
final results, the DOC based its valuation of whole live fish prices –
the primary input in the fish fillet case – on one Indonesian government
pricing study which showed radical fluctuations in pricing and was not
based on actual prices, but on calculated national averages from a
handful of districts.
The DOC engineered this punitive result
after intense political lobbying on behalf of the US domestic
industry, the Catfish Farmers of America (CFA). There was no attempt to
hide the multiple high-level meetings and lobbying efforts made on
behalf of the CFA directly to the DOC, VASEP said.
It clearly
draws into question the fairness of the process and the alleged
“neutral” nature of the DOC decision-makers. Vietnamese respondents have
fully cooperated with DOC through multiple on-site verifications and
the filing of full and complete responses and data over nearly 18
months.
For the past eight years, the DOC has consistently
used Bangladesh to value Vietnamese fish inputs, continually rejecting
the Philippines and Indonesia due to the poor quality of the
pricing data, the lack of publicly available financial data, and the
fact that these countries have no exports to other countries. No
material changes had been made to these facts in this review.
Bangladesh is farming Pangasius Hypophthalmus in ponds like
Vietnam . Producers in the two countries share the reasonably
comparable production cost and revenue. While Indonesia farms five
different catfish species. Thus, there is even no specific data in its
output of Pangasius Hypophthalmus.
In fact, the DOC continued
to follow this well-reasoned policy even through the most recent new
shipper review, published only a few weeks ago.
There was no
record evidence in the 8 th review that Indonesia had improved its
position as a viable surrogate country or that the data was any more
reliable. We must therefore believe that domestic politics played a very
obvious role in this decision, VASEP emphasised.
The final
duty rates for the reviewed companies – although not effective until a
final determination is made – average between 0.19 USD per kilo and 1.34
USD per kilo, with all other separate rates companies receiving a 0.77
USD per kg duty rate. These exceed 100 percent in additional duties.
These rates effectively bar the reviewed Vietnamese exporters from the
US market and are punitive, not remedial.
VASEP, together
with individual fish exporters and the relevant trade remedy bureaus of
the Vietnamese Government are studying all options in addressing this
punitive result and its legality under US law and the WTO. Further,
there will be a comprehensive review of its impact on bi-lateral
relations.-VNA