Claim to ask recalculation of antidumping margin of shrimp export to the US

The US Department of Commerce (DOC) has issued the final conclusions of the 10th administrative review of anti-dumping duty on shrimp products (POR10) from Vietnam. In the role of business Representatives, do you have any comments about this tax?

In comparison with the POR final tax, the final tariff in the revision of the anti-dumping duty applicable to the POR10 shrimp export consignments from 1-2-2014 to 31-1-2015 increased significantly, from 0.91% to 4.78% for both mandatory and voluntary respondent companies. The reason for this higher tax rate is the application of distinguished valuation methods (which allow DOC to reuse the zeroing method) to calculate the dumping margin.

Under WTO rules the Zeroing method is not allowed in the administrative review period. However, US law still allows the application of this method in calculating the dumping margin which is inconsistent with the WTO agreement.

With the current data, without the application of the Zeroing method, anti-dumping tariffs of Vietnam enterprises will definitely be 0%.

Currently, South Korea also filed a petition to the WTO on the issue of the US distinguished valuation method. Moreover, WTO has made judgments about this illogical calculation. Definitely, the US Zeroing method is not consistent with the WTO agreement and accelerates Vietnam business tax. As a matter of fact, what are the moves Vietnamese enterprises will take, with the decision by DOC? Certainly, Vietnamese enterprises will appeal to the US international trade court and even higher levels to require DOC to recalculate the tax rate. As a rule, Vietnam has the right to submit an application to the US international trade court US within 30 days. As a matter of fact, Vietnamese enterprises do not dump shrimp products in US so we are currently preparing the dossier to appeal to ask the US to put tariffs at 0%.

What are the effects of an anti-dumping tax increase on Vietnamese shrimp exports to the US?

In short, the decision to increase the anti-dumping duty of DOC also causes unstable psychological pressures for consumers. However, Vietnamese enterprises are showing reliable evidence to persuade consumers and importers so we are still able to maintain exports based on provisional tariffs.

In fact, we are not dumping but also only selling at market prices. This rate is only provisional duties and the exact tax rate is fixed until the administrative review of export shipments in 2016. The tax rate is estimated at 0 percent.

Previously, during the administrative review POR8, anti-dumping tariff on shrimp was at a very high rate of 6.37%. At that time, Vietnamese enterprises also faced many challenges. Luckily, the market was gradually more stable. As a result, in POR9, anti-dumping duty has fallen to 0.91%, which helped enterprises enhance customers’ trust and maintain export activities to the US.

Moreover, US shrimp importers don’t pay attention much to tax rates but instead, they care about the qualities of our products meeting their needs before signing the contracts.