2007-04-24 17:44:19 -
WASHINGTON, April 24 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- U.S. retailers have sharply curtailed orders for apparel from Vietnam since the U.S. government began a program of monitoring imports with an eye to possible antidumping actions, the National Retail Federation told the Bush Administration at a hearing today. NRF asked the Administration to immediately narrow the scope of the program.
"Implementation of the monitoring program has had a chilling effect on apparel sourcing for Vietnam," NRF Vice President and International Trade Counsel Erik Autor said. "Pending orders from Vietnam have plummeted. At least one
prominent retailer has ceased all orders from Vietnam, another has cut its orders by 80 percent, and many others have cut their orders substantially."
Autor's comments came this morning at a Commerce Department hearing on the Administration's Vietnam Textile and Apparel Import Monitoring Program. The program was started after Vietnam joined the World Trade Organization in January as part of a deal made last year with textile state senators who opposed Permanent Normal Trade Relations status for Vietnam. Under the deal, the Administration agreed to begin monitoring of apparel imports from Vietnam and to consider self-initiation of antidumping cases if evidence is found of dumping that harms U.S. manufacturers.
Commerce Department Assistant Secretary for Import Administration David Spooner said at a recent forum in Washington that the monitoring has not had a negative impact on trade, citing an increase in imports from Vietnam in January. But Autor said today that imports delivered in January were based on orders typically made six to nine months earlier - before the monitoring had begun. Orders have decreased sharply since the monitoring began, and should be reflected in decreased import deliveries this summer, he said.
All of the orders canceled in Vietnam have been diverted to other Asian nations rather than redirected to U.S. manufacturers because U.S. companies either don't make the products in question or don't make them at competitive prices, Autor said.
Autor said the monitoring program's threat of possible antidumping cases and after-the-fact antidumping duties is driving retailers' decisions to reduce imports from Vietnam. Unlike the filling of quotas, decisions to pursue antidumping actions are not predictable, particularly in a non-market economy nation like Vietnam, he said.
"Trade remedy investigations inject a high degree of unpredictability into the sourcing equation," Autor said. "Retailers must worry every day whether the Commerce Department may at some point in the future deem that the price they paid on an order was at a dumped price. The mere threat that an antidumping investigation could be undertaken on a wide range of apparel products is a serious matter and one which is forcing apparel retailers to shift sourcing elsewhere."
Autor said the Commerce Department should immediately narrow the scope of the monitoring program to only apparel products that are made in the United States, for which U.S. apparel producers of those products have asked for monitoring and for which there is clear evidence that imports from Vietnam are causing material injury to those producers.
The National Retail Federation is the world's largest retail trade association, with membership that comprises all retail formats and channels of distribution including department, specialty, discount, catalog, Internet, independent stores, chain restaurants, drug stores and grocery stores as well as the industry's key trading partners of retail goods and services. NRF represents an industry with more than 1.4 million U.S. retail establishments, more than 23 million employees -- about one in five American workers -- and 2005 sales of $4.4 trillion. As the industry umbrella group, NRF also represents more than 100 state, national and international retail associations. Web: http://www.nrf.com/.
Source: National Retail Federation
