However, Vietnam's plastic businesses have already well prepared for such an event.

Ho Duc Lam, general secretary of Vietnam Plastic Association (VPA), said that although in October, DoC issued its initial decision on applying the temporary anti-dumping duty rate of 52-75 percent on PE plastic packages. However, it is unlikely that Vietnam would see changes in their final decisions slated for February 2010.

"With such high duty, the US's importers have stopped or cancelled contracts and Vietnam would loose this market which has long accounted for up to 40 percent of Vietnam's PE plastic package export worth $79 million," said Lam. Thus, in the upcoming time, the structure of export goods groups of Vietnam's plastic industry would have big changes.

However, Lam said that other big markets such as Japan, EU are still not impacted from the US's anti-dumping duty decision. Furthermore, Vietnam's packaging businesses plan to target middle-east markets and Africa because those markets are relatively easy-going for quality standards and have only few of trade barriers for export.

Although plastic packaging businesses are still seeking various measures to restrict losses due to the application of too high anti-dumping duty, responsibilities of joint ventures should also be considered when trade disputes or lawsuits happen.

Regarding the investigation of Vietnam's PE plastic packaging businesses that were sued for price dumping, DoC requires Vietnam to select nine Vietnamese businesses for investigation of production and also cooperates with Vietnam's ministries, agencies to study the government's subsidy policies for businesses.

Nevertheless, according to a lawyer of VPA, it is very hard to win the lawsuit against DoC. The main reason is that two out of three main defendants including Vietnam-Taiwan Joint Venture, Fotai Vietnam Enterprise and Advance Polybag withdrew their petitions and did not continue participating into the lawsuit, which significantly impacted the lawsuit. As a result, DoC thought that Vietnam had some problems and immediately applied the temporary anti-dumping duty at the highest level, 75 percent, on Vietnam's plastic packages.

Lam said that because only being the joint venture, there is any trade dispute, the foreign side could easily withdraw from the joint venture and seek another partner. Meanwhile, domestic enterprises still have to continue pursuing the lawsuit for long-term while the export country rarely wins that lawsuit.

Therefore, Lam said that VPA in the upcoming time will suggest the prime minister and the trade and industry ministry consider revising the management mechanism for joint ventures in order to avoid similar events in the forth time.

According to VPA, in the first 10 months, the country's plastic export markets numbered 45, of which the export ratio of Japan accounted for 24 percent, the US 20 percent, and markets outside EU, China, Malaysia and Philippines 37 percent. Total expected export in 2010 is $1.1 billion.

Thoi Bao Kinh Te Vietnam - December 19, 2009