Vietnam needs to do more to avoid trade fraud

The steel industry is facing lawsuits against tax evasion and dumping, according to information from the Vietnam Steel Association.
Vietnam needs to do more to avoid trade fraud ảnh 1Steel production at the Kyoei Vietnam Steel Company in Tam Diep Industrial Zone, Ninh Bình province. (Source: baoninhbinh.org.vn)

Hanoi (VNS/VNA) -
The steel industry is facing lawsuits against taxevasion and dumping, according to information from the Vietnam SteelAssociation.

The Trade Remedies Authority of Vietnam said that anti-tradeinvestigation measures against Vietnam’s exports were on the rise.
Products under investigation are mainly iron, steel, fibre,household appliances and electronics. In addition, domestic steel brands havebeen counterfeited.

Nguyen Van Sua, a steel industry expert, said that many lawsuits against thedomestic steel industry in recent years stemmed from the fact that foreignproducts were transferred to Vietnam for processing and were then labelled asoriginating from Vietnam.

This example of trade fraud greatly affected Vietnamese goods when they wereexported to other markets.

As they evade tax, many steel products imported into Vietnamwere cheap compared to domestic products. Therefore, coordination betweenrelated ministries and branches would be necessary, he said.

Sharing the view, Dr. Pham Sy Thanh from the Vietnam Institutefor Economic and Policy Research, said that it would be a disaster if foreigngoods "borrowed" Vietnamese origin, then were exported to othermarkets.

This would have a long-term negative impact on the wholeindustry, he said.

In order to effectively handle violations in the origin ofgoods, Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Tuan Anh directed the Trade RemediesAuthority of Vietnam to establish a standing team to increase state managementon trade remedies and origin fraud and finalise action plans, coordinating withconcerned ministries and branches in implementing them.

The minister also asked C/O (certificate of origin) issuersand customs authorities to tighten the issuance of C/O, as well as strengtheninspections on enterprises with sudden export volume increases.
This was a necessary move to improve the control of goodsorigin and combat fraud, the minister said.

Nguyen Van Sua said that authorities needed to have policiesto protect the domestic market and restrict the import of domestically producedproducts. In particular, they need to promote the use of trade defence toolsand prevent shoddy goods.

However, the core issue lay with the enterprises, which areunder pressure from trade remedies, so the initiative in domestic raw materialsupply plays an important role, according to Sua.

Nghiem Xuan Da, Chairman of the Vietnam Steel Association,said that enterprises must work together and provide information to theassociation to avoid surging export growth to new markets such as Canada andMexico when the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-PacificPartnership (CPTPP) comes into effect.

This would reduce losses when countries initiate investigations and apply traderemedies on Vietnam’s exported steel products.

In addition, the authorities needed to strengthen protectionof domestic production with technical and trade barriers, he advised.
He advised preventing the transfer of foreign investment intothe country with inappropriate technologies which consumed a lot of energy andcaused environmental pollution./.
VNA

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