Vietnam protests US catfish tariff hikes

Sep 17, 2010, 10:07 GMT

Hanoi - Vietnamese seafood companies Friday protested a move to hike tariffs retroactively on Vietnamese catfish sold on the US market over a year ago, claiming the move was motivated by US-based competitors.

Last week, the US Department of Commerce issued a preliminary decision raising tariffs on fillets of Vietnamese catfish exported to the US between August 2008 and July 2009.

For some companies the new tariff comes to 130 per cent, or 4.22 dollars per kilogram, compared with the average 40-per-cent tariff charged at the time.

'It is an unfair decision and we strongly reject it,' said Truong Dinh Hoe, general secretary of the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers.

The US is the second-largest market for the Vietnamese fish after the European Union. About 10 per cent of Vietnamese catfish exports, or 150 million dollars' worth, went to the US in 2009.

Because the US does not consider Vietnam a market economy, the Department of Commerce fixes anti-dumping tariffs by comparing prices to those in a 'reference' market economy.

Beginning in 2003, the US used Bangladesh as the reference country for Vietnam's catfish industry, but this year it switched to using the Philippines.

But Vietnamese producers say the Philippines has a tiny, non-competitive catfish-farming industry with much higher production costs than Vietnam's, leading to unfairly high tariff calculations.

Hoa said the US had switched their reference 'because of pressure from the US catfish industry.'

He also said the changes created too much uncertainty. 'It means no (catfish) company will be able to export to the US,' he said.

Hoa said Vietnamese authorities were reviewing the case and may decide to bring a suit with the World Trade Organization.