While Vietnamese businesses protested, the United States industry welcomed the anti-dumping duties (ADs) imposed by the final results in the 8th Administrative Review of the Department of Commerce (DOC) on imports of frozen catfish fillets from Vietnam.

The DOC’s final determination, issued on March 14, indicated that Vietnamese catfish will now face significantly higher ADs when imported into the domestic US market. Previously, in its preliminary results, the DOC had assigned near-zero ADs. Following the final determination, with a range of ADs up to USD3.87 per kg, the majority of Vietnamese exporters will suffer rates of USD0.77 per kg – a 25 times increase over their previous AD rates.

Since 2008, it was reported that Vietnamese imports of frozen catfish fillets have tripled and have taken nearly 80% of the US market. The US has become, with total imports of some USD350m in 2012, the second largest export market (taking over 20%) for Vietnamese catfish, after the European Union.

However, the imposition of higher ADs is seen to be solely the result of a contentious Commerce Department decision to switch from a Bangladeshi surrogate value to Indonesian price index for calculation of the Vietnamese ADs.

The DOC had also changed the country of reference previously, having initially selected the Philippines, resulting in the imposition of an average USD0.56 per kg AD rate for Vietnamese businesses. Following legal protests, the DOC reverted to data from Bangladesh, and the tariff dropped to USD0–USD0.03 per kg.

Vietnamese exporters have protested that Indonesia’s socio-economic conditions are completely different from Vietnam’s, but the DOC’s decision appears to have been driven by the US catfish industry’s urging that it should revert to the Philippines, or move to Indonesia, for determining the surrogate value. In a letter written in February this year to the DOC by Representative Rick Crawford (R – Arizona), “each of these countries is qualified and has better data available.”

After hearing of the DOC decision, Crawford stated: “For too long, the catfish industry has faced unfair competition from non-market economies (NMEs), such as Vietnam. I am pleased to hear that the Department heeded my call to assign a fairer price calculation to the value of Vietnamese catfish. … Over the past decade, Arkansas has seen more than half of catfish farming water acres disappear, partly due to unfair competition with Vietnam – among other NMEs. The US catfish industry largely exists in the Mississippi Delta region.”

Senator Thad Cochran (R – Mississippi) also welcomed the DOC determination, saying that it “is a step in the right direction, but the DOC must continue to enforce our trade laws in future decisions.”

In the meantime, Vietnamese catfish exporters have professed their determination to battle against the decision by providing further statistics to point to the DOC's miscalculations, while also taking advice from US commercial lawyers.

March 19, 2013

Source: Tax News

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