A customer chooses honey at an HCM City Honey Bee Joint Stock Company (Behonex) store in Phu Nhuan district. (Photo: courtesy of Behoney) Asthe US Department of Commerce (DOC) plans to apply its highest rate ofmore than 412 percent on raw honey imported from Vietnam, 35 Vietnamesecompanies exporting honey with an annual turnover between 70 million USD and 100million USD are being put under pressure.
Accordingto insiders, at the end of 2021, the DOC issued preliminary conclusions on theanti-dumping investigation into Vietnamese honey products, determining thedumping margin for honey products originating in Vietnam from 410.93 percentto 413.99 percent and imposed a corresponding temporary tax rate, adding that aconclusion on the application is set to be issued by next month.
LeThanh Van, Chairman of the Vietnam Honey Exporters Association, said: “Withsuch shocking and unbelievable anti-dumping tax rates, it is difficult toexport honey to the market. America. This is an unreasonable tax because forhoney to be exported to the US, it must meet strict standards from the US side,such as meeting the quality standards of the US Food and Drug Administration(FDA).”
Van,also chairman of Dak Lak Honey Bee Joint Stock Company, one of the twomandatory defendants of the lawsuit, said Vietnamese honey does not competewith US honey because it was mainly used in processing not sold directly toconsumers like US honey.
Inaddition, Van said Vietnam has been exporting honey to the US since 1991with stable output, and it was unreasonable for the US beekeeping industry tosay that Vietnamese honey hurts them.
Van’sbusiness has spent more than half a million US dollars to pursue thelawsuit. He told local media: “This amount is really too much for businesses,so the future will be even more difficult if there are adverse developmentsbecause it will cost many times more,” referring to the cases of shrimp andpangasius in foreign markets previously.
Similarly,Dang Ba Long, director of the HCM City Honey Bee Joint Stock Company (Behonex),which spent 12,000 USD to join the lawsuit, said: “As Vietnam’s honey industryis too dependent on the US market, if the above preliminary tax rate isimposed, the whole industry may be destroyed."
“Theharvest season is from March to October every year. So if the DOC announcethe rate in April, as the peak time of harvesting the products, the industrywill face an oversupply crisis, and the price will plummet."
Longsaid that Behonex had been doing domestic business for a long time.However, the turnover rate in the local market was still low, less than 30percent of total revenue, as most Vietnamese consumers do not consider honey asa daily food but a medicinal product, which they use very occasionally.
Hesaid that although the price of honey was not much higher than sugar - a litreof honey costs only 100,000 VND (4.3 USD) - the value of honey was notrecognised in Vietnam.
Hecalculated that if 100 million Vietnamese people used honey as in theUS and EU, the output of the industry, about 70,000 tonnes per year, was not aproblem, but until that day “losing the US market, the honey industry willbe extremely difficult.”
Lastmonth, spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Le Thi Thu Hang said Vietnamhas strongly protested the DOC’s plan to impose an anti-dumping tariff on itsraw honey products.
Previously,the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Ministry of Agriculture and RuralDevelopment (MARD) had discussions with the US at different levels, includingthe DOC, asking the US to make sure any measures imposed were basedobjective, fair and in line with World Trade Organization(WTO) regulations.
TongXuan Chinh, Deputy Director of MARD’s Department of Livestock Production, saidthe most critical solution was the close coordination from ministries,departments, branches and state management agencies to guide businesses andfarmers to comply with requests from the US
Chinhsaid it was necessary to develop safety criteria for honey to have a basis forevaluating the quality of exported products.
“Itis necessary to strengthen trade promotion to diversify honey export markets,avoiding dependence on each US market. Enterprises need to diversify productsand promote domestic consumption so that consumers use honey more,”he said.
Lawyerand lecturer at Foreign Trade University Nguyen Ngoc Ha told local media:“Vietnamese businesses should consider taking advantage of some of Vietnam’sFTAs market such as the EU and other countries that have ratified the CPTPP toreduce dependence on the US.”
Hasaid the Government might consider using an appropriate mechanism such asconsultation, dispute settlement under the Anti-Dumping Agreement or the WTODispute Settlement Agreement to protect the industry.
Haalso suggested the Government keep negotiating so that the US recognised Vietnam asa market economy to avoid using the domestic selling price of a third countrywhen determining the dumping margin.
Hasaid: “Vietnamese enterprises need to determine their willingness to besubjected to trade remedies by foreign countries and develop an appropriatebusiness strategy in which to diversify export markets to reducedependence on a single market.”
Atthe same time, he told local enterprises to update the regulations onanti-dumping or trade remedies of the host country to be more positive indealing with potential issues./.
VNA
