WTO concludes Vietnam’s shrimp lawsuit

The World Trade Organization (WTO) has stated that the US application of the zeroing methodology for calculating anti-dumping taxes is in violation of the organization’s rules.

The final conclusion on July 11 supports two of Vietnam’s three claims in its lawsuit against the US Department of Commerce over the latter’s use of zeroing against frozen shrimp shipped from Vietnam.

The WTO panel stressed that the US’s application of zeroing created greater dumping margins for imports from Vietnam, pushing up the taxes imposed on them and causing big losses for Vietnamese shrimp exporters.

The US has fixed anti-dumping tax rates on most Vietnamese shrimp exports at 4.13-25.76 percent.

The WTO also agreed with Vietnam’s second major claim. It says that the US using zeroing to calculate the common tax rates for the second and third administrative reviews was inconsistent with WTO regulations. The nationwide tax rates the US imposes on countries such as Vietnam and China were usually much higher than the normal calculations that conform to WTO regulations, which brought about considerable losses to exporters.

The WTO also concluded that the US employed available data to calculate its nationwide tax rates in the second and third reviews, which violated the WTO’s regulations.

According to the WTO regulations, both sides now have 60 days to appeal the WTO’s decision.

The Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers and their lawyers say that if Vietnam wins the lawsuit, it will increase the competitiveness of its frozen shrimp on the US market because Vietnamese exporters will not have to pay anti-dumping fees and they would be completely free of anti-dumping taxes. - VOV

Tags: Vietnam shrimp exports