Vietnam fights US anti-dumping tariff on shrimp exports

Vietnam seafood exporters have asked the U.S. Department of Commerce to reconsider a preliminary anti-dumping tax that it has decided to impose on frozen shrimp from Vietnam, claiming the department has made a mistake.

The DOC has slapped a preliminary tax of 25.36 percent on Vietnamese shrimp, the highest rate in the past 13 years.

According to the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP), a mistake has been made in the calculation of dumping margin.

During the latest review of anti-dumping lawsuits in the U.S. between February 1, 2016 and January 31, 2017, the DOC used just one Vietnamese firm, Fimex VN, to base its decision on.

That decision resulted in the rate of 25.36 percent that now all shrimp companies are subject to.

Fimex VN said the DOC had applied an incorrect conversion factor from headless to head-on shrimp.

If the conversion had been applied correctly, the margin would only be 1.19 percent instead of 25.36 percent, said the company.

In a review lasting from August 1, 2011 to July 31, 2012, Fimex VN was freed from anti-dumping tariffs imposed by the U.S. and therefore, the exporter and VASEP are now more confident in their claim.

Although the preliminary results have not yet been applied and ccould change, they may still have an impact on importers in the U.S. as well as Vietnamese exporters, especially as they await the DOC’s final decision.

Vietnam’s shrimp export value to the U.S. dropped 7 percent to $659 million last year, official government data shows.