The Trade Remedies Authority of Vietnam (TRAV) under the Ministry of Industry and Trade has revealed a list of 12 products which are likely to face trade origin fraud or illegal transshipment investigations.

Illustrative image (Photo: baodautu.vn)

They include plywood made from hardwoods, foam cushions, wood cabinets, artificial stones, bronze pipes, steel couplers, steel wheels and pre-processed steel.

Gas cylinders, cardboard box staplers for export to the US, truck and coach tyres for EU export, and electric bicycles to the US and EU may also be subjected to investigation.

Those products enjoyed high export revenues in 2019. 

Particularly, the revenue from wood cabinets increased to US$1.37 billion last year from US$913 million in 2018, a year-on-year surge of 50%.

US import of artificial stones from Vietnam expanded 2.5 times to US$118.2 million in 2019 from US$46.3 million the previous year.

Meanwhile, Vietnam’s export of truck and coach tyres to the EU surged to EUR69 million (US$75.03 million) in 2019. The country raked in EUR87.5 million from electric bicycle exports to the EU and US$18.6 million to the US in 2019.

In addition, investigations and anti-dumping measures have been imposed on similar products in other countries, including China, India and Turkey.

Under the Prime Minister’s Decision 824/QD-TTg on issuing the plan to strengthen the management on prevention of evasion of trade defence and origin fraud, the TRAV is responsible for building a system for reporting products involved in trade protection probes.