Vietnam investigates anti-dumping toward sugar imported from Thailand

At 21^th September 2020, the Ministry of Industry and Trade announced to initiate an investigation for applying anti-dumping countervailing measures against some sugar goods imported from Thailand.

According to the regulations of Law on Foreign Trade Management, 21^th September 2020, the Ministry of Industry and Trade has enacted the Decision No. 2466/QĐ-BTC about the investigation of anti-dumping and countervailing for sugar originated from Thailand on the basis of the requested Dossiers from the representatives of Domestic Industry, which include 6 following companies:

• Sugar Son La Joint Stock Company,
• Sugar Son Duong Joint Stock Company,
• KCP Vietnam Industrial Limited Liability Company,
• Sugar Can Tho Joint Stock Company,
• Sugar 333 Joint Stock Company,
• Sugar Soc Trang Joint Stock Company,

Investigated products: Sugar, code HS 1701.13.00, 1701.14.00 and 1701.99.10, originated from Thailand (case’s code: AD13-AS01).

Content:

To fulfil Vietnam’s commitment to ASEAN about applying WTO Tariff Quotas, Vietnam has eliminated the sugar importing tariff quotas in sugar importing for ASEAN countries since January, 1^st 2020. In the first 8 months of 2020, the amount of imported sugar in Vietnam has escalated surprisingly and reached 950.000 tons, which was 6 times more than that of the same period in 2019. The majority of imported sugar came from Thailand, which is 860.000 tons (which was 145.000 tons at the same period last year and 300.000 tons of the whole 2019).

According to the Domestic Industry representatives, this escalated amount of imported sugar is the main cause of domestic sugar industry’s losses. Domestic sugar amount of the 2019/2020 season declined to be approximately 800 thousand tons, which is 1.2 million tons lower than that of 2018/2019 season.

Furthermore, Domestic Industry have already provided information, evidence show that sugar imported from Thailand is being dumped into Vietnam as well as Thailand’s government has been maintaining policies that promote sugar canes cultivation and sugar manufacturing.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade will conduct an investigation in accordance with Vietnamese Law to establish a fair competitive environment in the context of international economic integration and to protect the rights and benefits of domestic industry from outside anti-competitive behavior. The procedures, processes shall be proceeded in accordance with the Announcement attached with Decision No. 2466/QĐ-BTC.

According to the provisions of the Law on Foreign Trade Management, the Ministry of Industry and Trade may apply anti-dumping and countervailing duties which have retroactive effect on taxable goods within 90 days before the application of temporary anti-dumping and countervailing duties.

The next steps:

According to the Law, after initiating an investigation, the Ministry of Industry and Trade shall provide the investigation questions to related parties in order to collect information for analysis, evaluation of the alleged content, including: (i) the anti-dumping activities of Thai Lan exported enterprises; (ii) the Thai Lan Government’s subsidy behavior towards their exported enterprises; (iii) the damage to Vietnam’s sugar industry; and (iv) causality between dumping, subsidy and damage of domestic industry.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade shall conduct the examination and re-verify the information provided by related parties. At the same time, the Ministry of Industry and Trade will also hold a public consultation for stakeholders to directly exchange, provide information, and express their views on the case before going to the final conclusion.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade recommends every organization, individuals that are exporting and importing, distributing, trading and using the investigated goods to register as related party and provide necessary information to the Ministry of Industry and Trade in order to ensure their rights and interests as prescribed legal regulations.