The Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP) has confirmed that the US Department of Commerce (DOC) increase in its antidumping tariff on Vietnam’s tra (Pangasius) fish runs counter to the letter and spirit of the free trade agreements between Vietnam and the US.

In an open letter sent to the Vietnamese Government and the US Ambassador in Vietnam on Sept. 16, VASEP expressed indignation and concern over DOC’s preliminary antidumping duty rates in the sixth administrative review applied to Vietnam’s tra frozen fillets exported to the US.

The duty rates are in excess of 100 percent, far exceeding any prior rates in this unfair dumping case lasting more than eight years, and clearly amounting to a punitive tariff on Vietnamese fish fillet exports, said the association.

According to VASEP, the calculated dumping rates cannot be supported by the evidence and data submitted for this review.

VASEP expressed its particular concern at DOC’s unjustified change in the surrogate country used to value raw material inputs, sudden switching from Bangladesh to the Philippines after consistently rejecting the Philippines in all prior administrative reviews due to the poor quality of the pricing data, the lack of publicly available data, the extremely small size of the Philippine catfish industry, and the fact that the Philippines has not exported products of this fish species.

VASEP said it believed the results are politically motivated, coming after significant recent lobbying efforts by the Catfish Farmers of America (CFA).

VASEP and individual fish processors/exporters requested the Vietnamese Government undertake a comprehensive review of the harmful impacts of DOC’s determination and urge DOC and the administration of the US to carefully reassess this decision, not allowing it to have a bad influence on the well-developing bilateral relations between the two nations.

At a press briefing in Hanoi on Sept. 17, VASEP Vice President Nguyen Huu Dung said the association and Vietnam’s tra fish businesses will protect the industry by taking essential legal action to request DOC to change the results of the sixth administrative review which are expected to be issued in March 2011 in accordance with the US law and the WTO agreement.

VASEP and businesses are striving to complete practical data on tra fish prices and evidence proving Vietnam did not dump its tra fish in the US market in order to send this information to the US next month.

Both sides are expected to discuss the issue at a meeting slated for November this year.

VASEP has also sent two of the biggest tra fish exporters – Vinh Hoan and Hung Vuong – to the US to meet US lawyers for consultation on this disputed determination.

According to VASEP, Vietnam’s tra fish export value is estimated at 1 billion USD in the first nine months of the year and 1.5 billion USD for the whole year, with the US being the second biggest tra fish consumer, after the EU./.