According to the Vietnam Steel Association (VSA), the three countries all began taking investigations in September. In the worst case scenario, Vietnamese exporters would bear very high anti-dumping duties of up to 50 percent

Just within one week, Thailand announced three investigations against Vietnam’s steel products.

Malaysia has also initiated an anti-dumping investigation against Vietnam’s alloy and non-alloy cold rolled 0.2-2.6 mm thick and 700-1300 mm wide steel exports.

According to Nguyen Phuong Nam, deputy head of the Competition Administration Department (CAD), the primary decision will be released within 120 days since the day the investigation began.

In September, Indonesia announced it will conduct sunset review on cold roll coil imports from Vietnam, Taiwan, China, South Korea and Japan.

The majority of Vietnam’s steel mills have small and medium operation scale which have limited capability to struggle with anti-dumping lawsuits. 

Meanwhile, investigations to impose anti-dumping duties on Vietnamese products tends to be the ‘weapon’ more and more import markets are using to prevent imports and protect local production.

According to CAD, steel was the product subject to the highest number of anti-dumping investigations in 1994-2014 which accounted for 29 percent of total cases.

A department’s report showed that Vietnamese exporters became the defendant in five anti-dumping cases in the last five years in the US market. Only in one case, relating to carbon steel tubes, did Vietnamese get a judgment beneficial to them.

After the cases, the US fell to nearly the last position in the list of Vietnam’s steel export markets. The export turnover of steel products to the market just accounts for 2.8 percent of total steel export turnover.

Similarly, after Brazil imposed anti-dumping duties of 35.6 percent on Vietnam’s stainless steel coil, which began in 2013 and will last three years, Brazil is no longer a Vietnam’s export market.

A CAD official noted that steel products are often subject to anti-dumping investigations because countries all want to protect their basic industries.

According to Nguyen Van Sua, VSA’s deputy chair, the only solution for Vietnam to avoid lawsuits and minimize risks is to diversify export markets. In 2011-2013 alone, Vietnam faced eight anti-dumping investigation cases in the markets of the US, Australia, Canada, Indonesia and South Korea.

In all cases, whether or not Vietnam was judged as dumping in the export markets, its enterprises had to spend big money on the lawsuits.

The Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry warned that Vietnam may face more anti-dumping lawsuits in the future as Vietnam more deeply integrates into the world. 

DDDN