Vietnam's products have been facing many anti-dumping lawsuits

At least 99 percent of the lawsuits were filed by manufacturers in importing countries.

To date, Vietnam has been the defendant in 78 anti-dumping lawsuits, 12 anti-countervailing cases and 17 anti-dumping duty avoidance cases.

The report released at a workshop on trade remedies held by the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) in late June 2018 showed that of 78 anti-dumping investigation cases, 20 percent were raised by the US. Regarding anti-countervailing lawsuits, half of the cases were also raised in the US. The other plaintiffs were India, Turkey, Australia and the EU.

Thirty-seven out of 78 anti-dumping and three-fourths of anti-countervailing lawsuits were related to steel products. 

The other products that also coped with many anti-dumping lawsuits were yarn and weaving. Vietnam exports some kinds of yarn products which it does not use when making garment exports.

The products are mostly exported to Turkey and India, two markets that filed most of the anti-dumping and anti-subsidy lawsuits. Of the 78 anti-dumping cases, only four were related to farm and seafood products.

As for the anti-dumping duty avoidance lawsuits, Nguyen Thi Thu Trang from VCCI said 16 out of 17 cases originated from China. 

This means that Chinese products were levied anti-dumping duties, but import countries doubted that Chinese products were brought to Vietnam before they are shipped to import countries in an attempt to avoid duties. 

Chu Thang Trung, deputy head of the Trade Remedies Department, commented that the appeal lodged by several branches and enterprises was ineffective because of the lack of experience to deal with foreign rivals. 

This is attributed to the enterprises’ limited knowledge about trade remedies, the lack of experience in appeals, the absence of strategy and professionalism, and lack of strong determination.

The problem lies in Vietnam’s enterprises’ weak financial capability, while the cost of appeals is very high. In most cases, enterprises need to hire experienced lawyers from the countries initiating the investigations.

Trung warned that the number of anti-dumping and anti-subsidy lawsuits is on the rise because import countries tend to install technical barriers to restrict imports when the tariffs have been cut in accordance with FTAs. 

He said Vietnamese enterprises need to protect themselves by equipping with basic knowledge about the laws.

He also urged enterprises to diversify export markets, seek new markets, diversify products and avoid the overly hot  development in exports of some certain products to some certain markets.

Trang of VCCI also thinks that Vietnamese enterprises need to prepare themselves for lawsuits as soon as possible, because anti-dumping lawsuits only last for short time, while technical requirements are very complicated.

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Kim Mai