According to the press release of VASEP Vietnamese seafood companies are ready to protest a move to hike tariffs retroactively on Vietnamese catfish sold on the U.S. market over a year ago. They claim that the move was motivated by U.S.-based competitors. Truong Dinh Hoe, general secretary of the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP), told that the decision to hike US antidumping duty is unfair and they strongly reject it.
Hoe also said that the US Department of Commerce hike the tariffs because the US does not consider Vietnam a market economy, the Department fixes antidumping tariffs by comparing prices to those in a “reference” market economy. The US used Bangladesh as the reference country for Vietnam’s catfish industry, but this year it switched to the Philippines. Vietnamese producers say the Philippines has a tiny, non-competitive catfish-farming industry with much higher production costs than Vietnam’s, leading to unfairly high tariff calculations.
According to Hoe the U.S. had switched their reference “because of pressure from the US catfish industry,” adding the changes created too much uncertainty. The decision means that no catfish company will be able to export to the U.S. Based on this the Vietnamese authorities were reviewing the case and may decide to bring a suit with the World Trade Organization (WTO).
