U.S. Department of Commerce officials announced 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.

This program began upon Vietnam’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in January 2007.

“Commerce will continue our commitment to examine imports from Vietnam to ensure that apparel is not dumped into the U.S. market and threatening American manufacturers’ competitiveness,” said Assistant Secretary for Import Administration David Spooner.

“Our investigation reveals that prices of Vietnamese apparel are in line with, and in most cases even exceed, other major suppliers, including Central America.”

Commerce examined import data for five different apparel product groups from Vietnam – trousers, shirts, underwear, swimwear and sweaters – during the second six-month period, August 2007 through January 2008.

The review determined that during this period, the United States did not import apparel from 208 of nearly 500 ten-digit Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) 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.

Commerce 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.

Commerce will continue to monitor trade in these categories during the next six months for the next review that will begin in September 2008. This import monitoring program will conclude at the end of this Administration.

The Commerce Department will continue to post import data for these product groups on the Vietnam Textile and Apparel Import Monitoring Program on its Web site.

U.S. Department of Commerce

May 12, 2008 (USA)

Source: www.fibre2fashion.com