Vietnam's trade defense lawsuit is not yet equal to 1/10

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Steel is facing many commercial defenses today. Photo: Ha Phuong.

The anti-dumping lawcases are overwhelming

Speaking at the seminar: "New Trends in Trade Remedies Law and the practice in the United States" held by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) in cooperation with the Ministry of Industry and Trade on 25 June 2018 in Hanoi, Ms. Nguyen Thi Thu Trang, the Director of the Center for WTO and Integration (VCCI) said: Up to now, Vietnam has been sued for 78 anti-dumping cases. Although the number of lawsuits varies from year to year, the general trend is that Vietnamese goods are increasingly being sued related to anti-dumping.

As for anti-subsidy cases, the figures till now are 12 cases and the lawsuits against anti-dumping duty are 17 cases.

According to Ms. Trang, of the 78 anti-dumping investigations, about 20% of cases originated in the United States. With anti-subsidy, half of the investigations are from the United States. followed by India, Turkey, Australia and the EU.

"The question is whether these countries are targeting Vietnam or not? The answer is no. In fact, in the world, there are other countries that are the largest anti-dumping market", Ms. Trang said.

In terms of goods, statistics showed that of the 78 anti-dumping cases, there were 37 cases involving iron and steel, accounting for nearly half of the types of sued goods. The anti-subsidy investigation is also available with nearly three out of five cases involving steel.

The next group of products that are facing anti-dumping investigations are yarns and textiles. Vietnam is not strong in textiles, but the number of investigations related to yarns and textiles are quite high as Vietnam exports some yarn and textile products which can not be used in the production of textiles and garments for export. Notably, these commodities are mainly exported to the Turkish and Indian markets, the two leading markets for anti-dumping.

Ms. Trang added that of the 78 anti-dumping investigations during the past time, only 4 cases involved agricultural and fisheries. However, in the context of Vietnam's desire to promote agricultural and fisheries exports, this is also a problem.

In the case of anti-dumping lawsuits, according to Ms. Trang, 16 of the 17 reported cases originated from China. After that, the importing countries suspected that Chinese goods were sold through Vietnam to them in order to avoid tariffs. This should also be noted in the coming time.

To date, 99% of complaints in the lawcases originate from domestic manufacturers. Reasons can be due to economic difficulties and crisis. In addition, the source of the lawsuits may stem from a reduced tariff barrier from free trade agreements (FTAs) so that countries think of other measures, and trade defense is one of the legal actions.

Enterprises need to diversify the market

Contrary to the growing status of these trade remedies, the number of cases of lawsuits initiated by Vietnam is relatively small. Specifically, according to Ms. Trang, till now, there are a total of 9 trade remedies cases with foreign goods imported into Vietnam.

Of these, the anti-dumping lawsuits included 3 cases related to steel products and there were 6 cases of self-defense bales related to steel, fertilizer, vegetable oil and floating glasses.

Considering the case of trade remedies in general, especially the cases of Vietnamese exported goods being sued, Mr. Chu Thang Trung, the Deputy Director of the Department of Defense under the Ministry of Industry and Trade said that among trade remedies cases, it was easy to see that the protest work of some commodities and enterprises was not effective due to lack of experience in dealing with foreign rivals.

This situation is due to many reasons such as: The level of understanding of most Vietnamese businesses on trade remedies is limited, and there is a lack of domestic enterprises' experience in investment plans.

In addition, the financial capacity of Vietnamese businesses is weak, while the cost of attracting investment is very high. To succeed, it may be necessary to hire experienced lawyers from the investigators.

According to Ms. Trung, in order to respond to trade remedies, enterprises should first protect themselves by equipping themselves with basic knowledge on trade remedies law. In addition, businesses should regularly exchange information with associations and State management agencies to capture early warning information on the possibility of being sued in the export market.

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"In order to minimize the risk of initiating trade defense investigations from other countries, enterprises need to diversify their markets, seek new export markets, diversify their products, move from competitive pricing strategy to competitive strategy based on quality and brand," Mr. Trung said.