The United States will not impose anti-dumping duties on apparel imports from Vietnam in the short term, the U.S. Department of Commerce officially announced this week. Unit prices of Vietnamese apparel monitored by the U.S. administration were not reduced, it said.

First 2008 data compiled by EmergingTextiles are confirming this trend. With labor and raw material costs surging in Vietnam, exporters warned they could further raise prices, on the contrary.

U.S. trade officials once again renounced in launching an anti-dumping investigation on apparel imports from Vietnam.

In a declaration released earlier this week, the U.S. Department of Commerce said there is "insufficient evidence" for triggering such a procedure.

The U.S. administration started monitoring certain categories of imports from Vietnam in the last year in order to answer requests from the U.S. textile industry.

Booming Exports from Vietnam

Although imports from Vietnam surged after quotas were eliminated in January 2007, there is no clear sign that a sharp reduction in prices is behind such a boom.

Scrutinized categories include trousers, shirts, underwear, swimwear and sweaters.

The monitoring covered the six-month period between August 2007 and January 2008.

Many of the tariff lines had rising unit values indicating that dumping is not taking place, said the Department of Commerce.

A comparison with similar imports from a series of other low-cost countries did not give evidence of dumping, in addition.

The same observation could have been made with first 2008 data which were compiled by EmergingTextiles (see our tables below).

Like in other emerging countries in Asia, apparel exporters in Vietnam may now be forced raising their prices, on the contrary, due to higher labor and raw material costs.

Ending in January 2009

Inflation rates reached more than 21% in April in Vietnam.

Although it warmly welcomed the DOC's conclusions, Vietnam's textile and apparel association Vitas again asked the United States to put an end to the monitoring program which is against WTO's rules and negatively affects the business, it said.

The U.S. trade administration will further monitor imports from Vietnam, it however announced, with results of the new review expected in six months. The program will expire with the Bush administration on January 19th, 2009.

8 May 2008

Source: www.emergingtextiles.com