Trade defense lawsuits in first six months higher than 2019

	Vietnam sued trade defense not equal 1/10 be sued
	EVFTA could signal difficulties for Vietnamese trade remedies

The level of trade defense investigations into wood products is on the rise. Photo: Nguyen Thanh

In the first six months of this year alone, the Ministry of Industry and Trade dealt with 13 trade defense lawsuits from foreign countries against Vietnamese goods and is going to investigate six cases in the near future (higher than the number of cases in 2019).

Meanwhile, although accounting for a small proportion of the total number of trade defense lawsuits (seven investigation cases, accounting for 4%), the investigation level into wooden products is on the rise. In the whole period of 2007 - 2017, there were only three cases of wood products, but since 2018 there have been four cases.

Notably, on June 17, the US Department of Commerce (DOC) conducted an anti-dumping and countervailing duty investigation into Chinese plywood products imported from Vietnam. These are hardwood plywood, decorative plywood and some veneer-coated plywood.

Under the above situation, the Ministry of Industry and Trade recommends enterprises study mechanisms, regulations and investigation procedures of the US; proactively perfect the management system and data to meet the requirements of information and prove the origin of raw materials; develop strategies to diversify products and export markets to disperse risks, avoiding concentrated export of large volumes into one market.

At the same time, enterprises also need a strategy to develop domestic raw materials to increase the added value of products, and this is also a long-term solution to respond to the "anti-evasion" investigations that are increasing today.

Motivated by the Vietnam-EU Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) coming into force on August 1, the Ministry of Industry and Trade assesses that it would open opportunities for Vietnam to boost exports to the EU market, but also new challenges of rules of origin and high technical standards.

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However, the Ministry also noted, there may appear a wave of production and order shifting to Vietnam, leading to the risk of origin fraud and trade remedies evasion, increasing the risk of trade remedies from the EU.