(VOVworld) – The US Department of Commerce (DOC) on Thursday issued its preliminary decision after the ninth administrative review on Vietnam’s exported tra fish.

Tra fish are processed at Tien River Seafood Processing Plant (Source: VNA)

Under the statement, Vietnamese frozen tra fish filets to the US between August 1, 2011 and July 31, 2012 will be subject to anti-dumping taxes. The anti-dumping duties on products of two mandatory reviewed companies will be of 0.42 USD a kilo and 2.15 USD per kilo respectively and for other voluntary companies it will be 0.99 USD a kilo. The rates have doubled compared to the levels set in the previous review. DOC has chosen Indonesia as the reference country though it had excluded in its list of six countries used as proxies for the ninth review announced in November 2011.

The Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers has voiced its objection to DOC’s imposition of the anti-dumping duties on imported Vietnamese tra fish, according to Truong Dinh Hoe, VASEP’s Secretary General. Hoe comments:

“VASEP is unhappy with the DOC’s sudden decision to use a different surrogate country to calculate the cost of Vietnamese fish products in its review. The DOC may be facing a great political pressure and that from the domestic catfish raisers. We call on the DOC to have a fairer and more objective look while assessing the lawsuit.”

The US Department of Commerce on September 5 announced its preliminary decision on tariffs on tra fish products imported from Vietnam with the average tariff rate at 2.11 USD per kg. The decision will seriously harm the lives of hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese farmers and the business of Vietnamese fisheries companies. Lawyer Matthew McConkey, a legal consultant for Vietnam, says: “I’m actually shocked that the Department picked Indonesia.I was not expecting it whatsoever. Each review, the Department issues a list and says these are the possible surrogate countries that we are going to look at. Indonesia was not in that list for one very important reason, based on GNI, Indonesia’s GNI is too far away from Vietnam’s.   

Matthew said the fact that Indonesia was not listed in the surrogate countries is important for Vietnam in the fight with the DOC, which will issue its final decision next March. Matthew said Vietnam needs concrete action to change the unjust decision. “There is going to be additional research done in various countries both by the lawyers here in the US, VASEP, the Vietnamese government, and the Vietnamese fish processors themselves. There is going to be legal argument by the lawyers, a hearing, and lots of other things to try to get the Department of Commerce to change its mind about what a surrogate country is in the final decision.”

Lawyer Matthew McConkey said Vietnamese enterprises have to seek support from their suppliers and customers in Indonesia.