~ Le Viêt Nam, aujourd'hui. ~
The Vietnam News

Year :      [2003]      [2002]      [2001]      [2000]      [1999]      [1998]      [1997]

Vietnam requests 'just' ruling on catfish

HANOI - Hanoi warned the U.S. Commerce Department on Thursday that an unfair ruling on charges Vietnam illegally dumped catfish on the American market could hurt broader trade links between the two countries. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Phan Thuy Thanh said a ruling against Vietnam, ``would greatly reduce the confidence of Vietnamese enterprises...in the policy of trade liberalization.''

Communist Vietnam has been slowly moving toward a market economy, and pledged in a trade agreement with the United States last year to open its markets to global standards and competition. The Commerce Department is expected to issue a preliminary ruling Friday in a suit filed by Mississippi Delta catfish farmers accusing Vietnamese producers of selling catfish in the United States at below-market prices. A final decision is expected in May or June. Vietnamese producers would be subjected to prohibitively high tariffs if the ruling goes against Hanoi.

Thanh said Vietnam is requesting that the case be considered in a ``thorough and just'' way. An unfair ruling would not be ``in the interest of promoting relations between Vietnam and the U.S. in trade and economics,'' she said. The Catfish Farmers of America lobby group claims Vietnam unfairly captured 20 percent of the $590 million U.S. frozen catfish fillet market. Vietnamese producers say their fish costs less because of lower labor and feed costs. The Commerce Department investigation was launched after the U.S. International Trade Commission found in August that there was ``reasonable indication'' that American producers were unfairly threatened by low-priced frozen Vietnamese catfish fillets.

Vietnam's growing catfish industry, which employs between 300,000 and 400,000 people in the southern Mekong Delta region, sends a third of its exports to the United States, with Europe and Asia taking the rest.

The Associated Press - January 23, 2003.