Garment importers applaud Vietnam review

Garment importers applaud Vietnam review The U.S. Association of Importers of Textiles and Apparel (USA-ITA) has applauded a review of apparel imports from Vietnam which found no evidence of dumping.
   Last week U.S. Commerce Department officials said that, after reviewing the third six months of data from the monitoring program of apparel imports from Vietnam, there was insufficient evidence to warrant self-initiating an antidumping investigation. The program began with Vietnam’s entry into the World Trade Organization in January 2007.
   “This final investigation reveals that prices of Vietnamese apparel are in line with, and in most cases even exceed, other major suppliers, including Central America,” said David Spooner, assistant secretary for import administration.
   Commerce examined import data for five different apparel product groups from Vietnam — trousers, shirts, underwear, swimwear and sweaters — during a third six-month period, February through July 2008.
   “The market is working in Vietnam. Prices are being set through the give and take of negotiations between U.S. buyers and manufacturers with operations in Vietnam. The Commerce Department should be credited for recognizing that reality,” said Laura E. Jones, executive director of USA-ITA.
   “The fact that three administration reviews have consistently found no evidence of dumping confirms that this monitoring program never should have been established in the first place. It forced our members to reconsider sourcing plans, adding costs, undermining efficiencies and diverting apparel orders to other suppliers, but did not bring a single order or job to the United States,” she said.
   “A discriminatory monitoring program is an unjustified and useless abuse of agency resources and processes, diverting attention from meaningful steps that would create jobs for American workers,” Jones added.
   In late October the U.S. International Trade Commission said it will monitor certain textile and apparel imports from China at the request of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Ways and Means.
   The ITC said it will provide statistical reports every two weeks on the volume, value, unit value and import market share of textile and apparel items that are covered by a Memorandum of Understanding Concerning Trade in Textile and Apparel Products that was entered into between the United States and China in 2005 and which is slated to expire at the end of this year.
   In requesting the monitoring, the committee said it is concerned that a market disrupting surge in textile and apparel imports from China could occur following the MOU’s December expiration. The committee noted that textile and apparel imports from China increased dramatically following the 2005 termination of import restrictions under the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Textiles and Clothing.