Apr. 23 – Vietnam filed its first case to the World Trade Organization’s Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) to establish a panel to resolve  a trade dispute with the United States over anti-dumping tax imposed on its shrimp exports.

Vietnam’s permanent representative to the United Nations Office, Vu Dung, said that Vietnam had taken this action only after careful deliberation and consultation with the United States. “The key issue involved in our request for a panel is the ‘zeroing practice,’ specifically zeroing in periodic reviews under U.S. law. In our view, this issue was decided already by WTO panels and the Appellate Body on many cases,” he said during a meeting with the DSB.

“Yet, the United States has failed to implement the reports of the Appellate Body and has continued to apply zeroing in administrative reviews, including zeroing practices imposed on Vietnamese products,” he added.

Vietnam exported 210,000 tons of shrimp to the United States last year amounting to US$1.67 billion, a 3 percent value increase compared to the year before.

Dung told VietnamNet Bridge that despite the fact that the United States has found no margins of dumping in the first, second or third reviews of the companies specifically being investigated, it had continued to assign margins of dumping to companies not investigated despite their requests to be investigated. The United States began imposing anti-dumping duties on Vietnamese shrimp in 2005 with tariffs ranging from 4.13 percent to 25.76 percent.