Enhance The Initiative Of Trade Remedy To Make Good Use Of FTA

Vietnam's participation in many free trade agreements (FTA) can not only enjoy the relevant tax incentives to promote the export of goods, but also face more trade remedy investigations. This situation requires that Vietnamese enterprises should improve their initiative and cooperate with the administrative departments to deal with the trade remedy measures in the future.

（1） The number of trade remedy cases is increasing

According to the statistics of the World Trade Organization (WTO), various trade remedies are affecting the global trade amount of 1.5 trillion US dollars. For Vietnam, with the deepening of international integration and the sharp increase of import and export trade volume, the number and scale of trade remedy investigation cases faced by export products are also increasing.

According to the latest information of the Ministry of Commerce and industry of Vietnam, as of September 2020, 193 trade remedy investigations (including 108 anti-dumping investigations, 22 anti subsidy investigations, 23 anti circumvention investigations and 40 defense investigations) were faced with in Vietnam's exports of goods, with a total trade volume of 12 billion US dollars. It is worth noting that the number of trade remedy investigations and the amount of trade volume faced by Vietnam have increased recently. Last year, Vietnam faced 19 trade investigations, compared with 32 in the first nine months of this year.

Most of the products under trade remedy investigation are products with strong items in Vietnam, such as metal (aluminum, flat steel, steel pipe), yarn, aquatic products (shrimp, fish), synthetic wood, building materials (brick, glass, sanitary equipment), chemical raw materials, etc., of which synthetic wood is the most investigated, affecting the production and export of enterprises. Trade remedy investigations are frequently conducted on Vietnamese exports, including the United States, India, the European Union, Turkey, Canada and Australia. The number of investigations conducted in the above markets accounted for 62% of the total number of investigations faced by Vietnamese goods. In particular, recently, ASEAN countries have been actively investigating trade remedy, with a total of 38 cases (20%).

（2） Enterprises should improve the initiative of responding to trade remedy

Le Anh van, director of the legal assistance and human development center of Vietnam's small and Medium Enterprises Association, said that the trade remedy provisions of the FTA posed great challenges to enterprises, and enterprises may face more investigations on anti-dumping and other trade remedy measures. However, due to the lack of information of many small and medium-sized enterprises in Vietnam, they are unable to use trade remedy measures and suggest the administrative authorities to implement trade remedy measures to protect themselves in real time, which affects the domestic industries of Vietnam and even some enterprises lose their market share. In addition, tax evasion, origin fraud and illegal transshipment will affect the operation of decent enterprises.

Vietnam's Ministry of industry and Commerce said that with regard to the recent trade remedy measures, the Ministry of industry and Commerce has actively cooperated with other relevant departments to provide and update the list of products that may face trade remedy measures and origin fraud, so that Vietnamese authorities can strengthen supervision, management and implement appropriate measures; early warning of possible investigation crisis, so that enterprises can take the initiative to deal with it; Foreign management and investigation authorities are requested to treat Vietnam's export enterprises objectively and abide by WTO regulations.

In order to cope with the trade remedy measures implemented by foreign countries to Vietnam and make good use of the preferential policies of FTA, Vietnamese experts believe that Vietnamese enterprises should take the initiative and actively participate. To be specific, we should establish a diversified export strategy, improve the competitiveness of products by quality, and regard trade remedy as a part of the production, operation and export strategy of our own enterprises. In addition, enterprises should have basic knowledge of trade remedy laws and regulations, prepare resources to cope with the possible crisis of trade remedy investigation, abide by the provisions of the origin of goods, and not participate in the illegal activities of origin fraud.