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(Published on Vietnam Economic News, Ministry of Industry and Trade) RCEP opens up a vast trade space but also creates strong competitive pressure, requiring businesses to strengthen legal understanding and trade remedy capacity.
The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) has opened and continues to open up enormous market-access opportunities for Vietnamese enterprises while imposing higher demands on legal knowledge and trade remedy capacity.
In an interview with Industry & Trade Newspaper, Master of Laws & Attorney Doan Vu Hoai Nam, Senior Associate at ASL LAW, a renowned Vietnam Antidumping Law Firm, clarified the new points in RCEP’s trade remedy mechanism and offered recommendations to help enterprises limit risks and effectively take advantage of integration opportunities.
Master of Laws & Attorney Doan Vu Hoai Nam, Senior Associate at ASL LAW
Trade remedies to “safeguard the gateway” to integration
– RCEP is considered the world’s largest free trade agreement with extensive commitments, including trade remedies. From a legal perspective, how do you assess the trade remedy mechanism under RCEP?
Attorney Doan Vu Hoai Nam: The trade remedy mechanism under RCEP has several differences compared to earlier-generation FTAs that Vietnam has participated in. First, RCEP inherits the basic provisions of the WTO while simultaneously introducing a special safeguard mechanism applied exclusively within the bloc to address situations of sudden trade surges when tariffs are reduced rapidly and significantly. This design allows more flexibility for member states in protecting their domestic industries.
In addition, RCEP emphasizes transparency, consultation, and cooperation among countries when applying trade remedy measures, thereby reducing the risk of abuse. This is an improvement over some previous FTAs and contributes to maintaining a balance between trade liberalization and domestic industry protection.
– RCEP opens a vast market of 2.3 billion people and eliminates up to 92% of tariff lines within 20 years, but also increases competitive pressure from imported goods. How do you view the role of trade remedy measures in protecting domestic industries?
Attorney Doan Vu Hoai Nam: In the context of RCEP opening a large market, trade remedy measures become even more essential to protect domestic industries from competitive pressure.
Trade remedies, including anti-dumping, countervailing, and safeguard measures, help domestic enterprises gain the necessary time and conditions to adjust their production activities, restructure supply chains, invest in technological innovation, improve management capacity, and strengthen long-term competitiveness.
These are not tools to “close the market for protectionism” but lawful measures provided for under trade agreements to ensure fairness and transparency in the market.
If applied in accordance with regulations and implemented in a timely manner, trade remedies will serve as a “strategic shield” protecting domestic industries from the negative impacts of dumped or subsidized imports.
Particularly for Vietnam, where many industries are small in scale, have high production costs, and limited resilience, effective use of trade remedies helps maintain employment, stabilize the market, and establish the foundation for sustainable development.
Therefore, together with market opening under RCEP commitments, Vietnam needs to proactively develop early warning systems, enhance the capacity of regulatory agencies and the business community in identifying, investigating, and flexibly using trade remedy measures to ensure the legitimate interests of domestic production and maintain trade balance during integration.
Vietnamese exporters need to proactively understand trade remedy regulations of each RCEP market – Photo: Nhu Y
Understanding the rules to stand firm in a larger “playing field”
– Could you analyze the specific legal risks that businesses need to pay attention to when exporting to RCEP member countries?
Attorney Doan Vu Hoai Nam: RCEP forms a large common market with unified trade rules, giving Vietnamese enterprises more opportunities to expand exports, but also increasing the risk of trade remedy lawsuits from member countries. These legal risks mainly arise from three groups of issues: origin of goods, pricing, and documentation transparency.
First, origin-related risks are the most common. RCEP allows origin cumulation within the bloc; however, if enterprises fail to strictly comply with these rules, even simple processing or assembly in Vietnam may be deemed as “illegal transshipment” to evade tariffs. When under investigation, enterprises must prove domestic value-added, production processes, and legitimate sourcing—requirements that many small businesses are not yet adequately prepared for.
Second, risks related to pricing and subsidies. Many Vietnamese enterprises tend to compete through low prices, which can easily lead to anti-dumping allegations if export prices are lower than domestic prices or reasonable production costs. In addition, State support such as preferential loans, tax exemptions or reductions, and export assistance may be considered subsidies and become grounds for importing countries to initiate countervailing investigations.
Finally, risks related to documentation and legal capacity. When under investigation, enterprises must provide thousands of pages of documents proving costs, pricing, contracts, and accounting records. If they lack transparency, submit documents late, or provide inaccurate information, foreign investigating authorities may apply the highest “country-wide rate,” causing significant damage.
Therefore, exporters need to proactively understand the trade remedy regulations of each RCEP market, build transparent data systems, cooperate with domestic investigating authorities, and seek international legal counsel to minimize risks and protect Vietnam’s commercial reputation.
– To make use of RCEP opportunities and mitigate risks from international competition, what recommendations do you have for regulators and businesses?
Attorney Doan Vu Hoai Nam: For businesses, it is necessary to equip themselves with basic legal knowledge on trade remedies, build transparent data management systems, and be ready to cooperate when investigations arise. Legal knowledge in international trade must be considered a mandatory “soft weapon” in integration.
They must invest properly in compliance management systems, from storing documents, accounting records, and foreign trade contracts to ensuring transparent declarations of costs, prices, and sourcing. This is crucial in helping them protect themselves during trade remedy investigations.
Additionally, businesses should shift from price-based competition to competition based on quality, branding, and technological innovation. Investing in productivity improvement, adopting green technology, and building transparent supply chains will help Vietnamese goods withstand pressure from low-priced imports while improving access to demanding markets such as Japan, South Korea, and Australia.
For regulatory agencies, it is necessary to strengthen training and dissemination of knowledge on trade remedies, develop early warning systems for risks of trade remedy investigations for each sector, and establish an international trade legal support fund and a team of professional consultants to help small and medium-sized enterprises access information, experts, and financial resources when facing investigations.
The Trade Remedies Authority of Vietnam (Ministry of Industry and Trade) and industry associations must continue to serve as a “legal anchor,” closely coordinating to guide enterprises in handling cases and promote a proactive and intelligent integration mindset.
Thank you for your insight!
The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is an agreement consisting of 15 member countries, including 10 ASEAN nations and 5 partners—China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand—signed on 15 November 2020 and officially effective from 1 January 2022.
To protect their legitimate interests, manufacturers and exporters should familiarize themselves with the procedure and actively contact Vietnam Antidumping Law Firm specializing in anti-dumping and trade remedy for timely assistance.
Read the full article here.
ASL Law is a leading full-service and independent Vietnamese law firm made up of experienced and talented lawyers. ASL Law is ranked as the top tier Law Firm in Vietnam by Legal500, Asia Law, WTR, and Asia Business Law Journal. Based in both Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, the firm’s main purpose is to provide the most practical, efficient and lawful advice to its domestic and international clients. If we can be of assistance, please email to [email protected].
ASL LAW is the top-tier Vietnam law firm for Anti-dumping & countervailing. If you need any advice, please contact us for further information or collaboration.
