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Vietnam brings shrimp case against US to WTO
Vietnam has launched its first dispute at the World Trade Organization with a case against US anti-dumping measures on its key exports of shrimp.
The trade dispute seeks to defend a product that brought in some US$1.5 billion in exports for Vietnam last year.
Vietnamese shrimp exporters currently face US anti-dumping duties ranging from zero to about 26 percent.
Truong Dinh Hoe, Secretary General of the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers, said Vietnamese exporters have opposed the US method of calculating antidumping duties known as zeroing, which has been condemned repeatedly by WTO courts and rejected by all other WTO members.
Zeroing is proven to be an unfair practice for imported products in anti-dumping cases, Hoe said.
“We are supporting the Vietnamese government to bring the controversial issue to the WTO and ask for its intervention to force the US to stop the wrong measures,” Hoe said.
He said it would take the WTO a long time to deal with the dispute but he hoped its final decision would bring fairness to Vietnamese seafood exporters.
"The WTO has concluded that the US was wrong in applying the zeroing method in precedent cases. I can see high possibility of Vietnam winning the case," Nguyen Huu Dung, Deputy Chairman of the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP), told the VietNamNet website last year.
According to a Reuters report on February 3, Vietnam is seeking consultations with the US – the first formal stage in a dispute.
A spokeswoman for the US Trade Representative's office said they were reviewing Vietnam's request for talks, but provided no further information, the report said.
If the two sides fail to resolve the dispute through bilateral consultations in 60 days, Vietnam can ask the WTO to set up a panel to rule on the case.
Minh Quang
thanhnien
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