What Are Possible Anti-dumping Measures on Office Desk Products and Office Table Parts, Chairs and Chair Parts?

Anti-dumping measure imposed on imports of Vietnam is a measure imposed on products that are dumped when being imported to Vietnam, which causes material injury or threaten to cause material injury to domestic industry or retard the establishment of the domestic industry.

According to regulations of the law, a product that is determined as dumped if price of this product imported to Vietnam is less than the comparable price of its like products sold in the exporting country or third country under the common commercial conditions or the price that is self-calculated by the investigating authority. Anti-dumping measures include: Imposition of anti-dumping duty; Undertakings to implement measures for removing the dumping carried out by organizations and individuals producing and exporting products subject to the anti-dumping measures with the investigating authority of Vietnam or domestic producers in case of the approval of the investigating authority.

In recent years, Vietnam has regularly used trade remedies to protect the domestic commodity market. In 2020, the State handled 5 new anti-dumping investigations against a lot of imported goods such as long yarn made of polyester (also known as filament yarn, PFY yarn) originating from China and India, Indonesia and Malaysia; Liquid sugar extracted from corn starch (also known as HFCS) originating from China and Korea; H-shaped steel from Malaysia; Cane sugar comes from Thailand and Sorbitol sugar comes from China, Indonesia and India.

On June 3, 2021, the Trade Remedies Administration (Investigating Authority) received the dossier of the company representing the domestic manufacturing industry (the Requesting Party), requesting investigation to apply anti-dumping measures on a few of office desk products and office table parts, chairs and chair parts originating from the People’s Republic of China and Malaysia. By June 18, 2021, the Investigation Authority confirmed that the dossier was complete and valid in accordance with the law on trade remedies.

According to regulations, within 45 days from the date of confirmation of complete and valid dossier, the Investigation Authority will appraise the dossier and submit it to the Minister of Industry and Trade for consideration to conduct investigation or not to conduct investigation.

Contents of dossier appraisal include:

(i) Determining the legal representative status of the domestic manufacturing industry of the organization or individual submitting the dossier in accordance with the Law on Foreign Trade Management;

(ii) Identify evidence that dumping of imported goods injury or threat of material injury to the domestic industry or material retardation of establishment of the domestic industry.

In order to serve the appraisal work, as well as ensure the legitimate rights and interests of enterprises, the Investigating Authority requests domestic enterprises producing/trading in similar goods mentioned above to provide detailed information about the enterprise, specifically: Information about the enterprise; Design capacity and quantity of office desks and table parts, chairs and chair parts in 2018, 2019 and 2020; The company’s opinion on the case (agree, oppose, no opinion); Any other documents/evidence that the enterprises deem relevant to the case.

The deadline for domestic enterprises to provide the above information is July 16, 2021.

If Client needs any more information or request for legal advice or potential dispute regarding trade remedies measures including, anti-dumping, countervailing duty and safeguard measures or international trade dispute matters, our competition, anti-dumping, and countervailing duty lawyers of International trade and tax practice at ANT Lawyers, a law firm in Vietnam always follow up anti-dumping cases and their development to update clients on regular basis.