Trade remedies create a fair business environment

The investigation and application of trade defense measures have contributed to protecting and creating a fair competitive environment for domestic manufacturing industries.

Actively protect domestic goods

Assessing the implementation of trade defense work, a representative of the Ministry of Industry and Trade said that in order to protect the domestic manufacturing industry against imported goods, the work of suing, investigating, and applying preventive measures trade protection continues to be promoted, re-creating a fair competitive environment for domestic industries in the context of many imported goods showing signs of dumping or subsidies, causing serious damage to some domestic manufacturing industries.

To date, the Ministry of Industry and Trade has initiated investigations into 28 trade defense cases and has applied 22 measures to imported goods. In the first 6 months of 2024, activities to investigate and review trade defense cases focus on continuing to investigate and review 7 cases initiated in 2023; Initiate investigation of 1 new case; receive and process 7 new dossiers requesting investigation and review.

Currently, there are 4 trade defense measures in effect on imported steel products and 1 trade defense measure on steel-related products (welding materials) and 2 cases are in process of investigation related to prestressed steel cable products and wind power towers. The Ministry of Industry and Trade is conducting a final review of the application of anti-dumping measures on cold-rolled stainless steel products (AD01) and color-coated steel products (AD04) to evaluate the effectiveness of the measures as well as the ability to continue importing them. Continue to extend the measure for another 5 years. It is expected that in October 2024 there will be review results of these two cases.

Regarding the appeal, the Ministry of Industry and Trade said that to date, Vietnamese exports have faced 252 trade defense investigation cases from 24 markets and territories. Among them, the leading cases are anti-dumping investigations (138 cases), followed by self-defense cases (50 cases), anti-circumvention of trade remedies (37 cases) and anti-dumping cases (27 cases).

Strengthen early warnings and support businesses

Early warning work as well as supporting businesses to respond to trade defense cases which were initiated by foreign countries to investigate Vietnamese export goods in recent times have brought some positive results. Specifically, Vietnam proves that export enterprises do not have acts of evading trade defense measures being applied to third countries in the case of the United States investigating anti-circumvention of round stainless steel wire; Australia's termination of anti-dumping investigation on ammonium nitrate; enterprises exporting solar cells to the United States are exempted from temporary trade defense taxes; the official anti-dumping tax rate applied by Mexico on galvanized steel is reduced compared to the preliminary level... Thanks to that, export businesses are not subject to trade defense tax or are subject to low tax rates, contributing to keeping stabilize and expanding export markets.

Information about trade defense work, at the question and answer session at the 7th Session of the recent 15th National Assembly, Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Hong Dien said, the cause of the export of Vietnamese goods is facing many trade defense lawsuits is because Vietnam has taken advantage of free trade agreements to expand and increase exports and the scale has increased annually from 5 to 6%, a trade surplus, so according to regulations, countries must consider defensive measures to protect domestic production.

Participating in the regional supply chain makes Vietnam a country that is frequently investigated together with other countries, often subject to trade defense investigations or suspected of illegal transshipment to avoid trade defense taxes against these countries...

Some countries tend to abuse trade defense measures to protect domestic industries more than necessary, even using many technical investigative measures that are not consistent with the WTO and international practices.

In recent times, the Ministry of Industry and Trade has proactively coordinated with ministries, branches, localities, industry associations and businesses to support businesses in effectively handling trade defense cases and as a result, has solved many cases such as: steel or honey, or some textile and footwear products.

In the future, according to leaders of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, central and local state management agencies need to coordinate to strengthen inspection, supervision and verification of the issuance of certificates of origin, declare origin when clearing customs for foreign investment registration, and provide businesses operating locally with the necessary information to exploit agreements. Relevant parties provide information to management agencies and the Ministry of Industry and Trade on time in case of handling foreign trade defense cases; manage and monitor business activities in the area to detect and prevent evasion. Business associations must monitor early warning information from the Ministry of Industry and Trade. At the same time, set a common strategic direction and encourage member businesses to participate when being investigated to protect the common interests of the whole industry.

Source: Customs News