Commerce Department Finds Insufficient Evidence to Self-Initiate Antidumping Case on Apparel Imports From Vietnam
The U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) announced today that, after reviewing the second six months of data from the monitoring program of apparel imports from Vietnam, there is insufficient evidence to warrant self-initiating an antidumping investigation. The import monitoring program began upon Vietnam’s entry into the World Trade Organization in January 2007.
Assistant Secretary for Import Administration David Spooner said that DOC's “investigation reveals that prices of Vietnamese apparel are in line with, and in most cases even exceed, other major suppliers, including Central America.”
During its review DOC examined import data for five different apparel product groups from Vietnam – trousers, shirts, underwear, swimwear and sweaters – during August 2007 through January 2008. The review determined that during this period, the U.S. did not import apparel from 208 of nearly 500 ten-digit Harmonized Tariff Schedule lines within the five groups from Vietnam. Many of the remaining ten-digit HTS lines had rising unit values, further indicating that dumping is not taking place.
DOC then compared trends in unit values and import levels to other suppliers of these products to the United States, including Bangladesh, CAFTA-DR (Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua), India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Thailand, Cambodia, Macau, Malaysia and the Philippines. Based on this comparison, Commerce concluded that there was insufficient evidence to self-initiate an antidumping investigation.
DOC indicated that it will continue to monitor trade in these categories during the next six months for the next review that will begin in September 2008.
The import data for these product groups can be found on the Vietnam Textile and Apparel Import Monitoring Program Web site at www.otexa.ita.doc.gov/vn.htm.
Labels: Antidumping, Vietnam
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