VASEP: US new antidumping tax on tra fish unreasonable

VASEP: US new antidumping tax on tra fish unreasonable

The US’s anti-dumping duties on Vietnamese frozen tra fish fillets will be reduced but still pose difficulties to Vietnamese exporters, according to the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP).

Under the preliminary findings on its 10 th administrative review for anti-dumping duties on tra fish fillets imported from Vietnam, the Department of Commerce has decided to impose anti-dumping duties from zero to 2.39 USD per kilo on Vietnamese tra fish fillets imported to the US between August 2012 and July 2013.

According to the DOC’s preliminary decision, Vinh Hoan JSC – one of the leading local tra fish exporters to the US, who was under investigation and taken off the list of Vietnamese tra fish exporters, enjoyed a zero tax rate.

Meanwhile, duties on Hung Vuong Corporation, one of the large tra fish exporters to the US and 23 other companies were revised from 1.2 USD to 0.58 USD per kilo.

AnviFish was charged duty at the highest rate of 2.39 USD per kilo as it did not supply specific timely information to the DOC.

However, the VASEP said the duties were unreasonable, as the DOC continued using Indonesian – a country that does not has similar economy with Vietnam – as the surrogate country in calculating the anti-dumping rate.

The new duties will, however, not take effect until the final decision is made. Relevant parties will have 120 days to reply before a final decision is taken.

According to Vietnam’s General Department of Customs, export value of tra fish to the US in the first five months, showed a year-on-year drop of 26 percent to 126.6 million USD.

During the first five months, Vietnam’s total export value of tra fish saw a year-on-year decline of 3.8 percent.

Two key tra fish export markets of Vietnam, the US and the EU, which accounted for 39.3 percent of the total export value, saw a reduction in export values over the past few months, according to VASEP.

The association expected the exports of Vietnamese tra fish to the two markets to recover by the end of this year.

Other key export markets for Vietnamese tra fish, such as Brazil, Mexico, China and Hong Kong continued to grow, along with Colombia and Saudi Arabia.-VNA

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