Posted on 09/03/2019 9:22:43 PM PDT by cba123
Vietnam will strictly define local goods to prevent tariff circumvention by Chinese firms amidst the U.S.-China trade war.
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The Ministry of Industry and Trade is drafting a policy that will define a product as "made in Vietnam" if it has a domestic manufacturing added value of 30 percent of its price. Vietnam has not had a clear standard on what locally made goods is, the ministry said last month.
The new policy will stop local manufacturers setting their own standards on using the "made in Vietnam" label for their products. Products made with imported material with slight changes will not qualify to claim Vietnamese origin.
Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has already signed a decision to prevent the circumvention of trade defense measures, and local government bodies are implementing this order.
A representative of the Vietnam Directorate of Market Surveillance said Friday that the agency is focusing on reviewing companies that have posted a sudden rise in imports from China.
(Please see full article at the link)
(Excerpt) Read more at ampe.vnexpress.net ...
Interesting .... I guess the Vietnamese are wising-up to China, and are demanding a cut to their own people.
‘Fair Trade’ beats ‘Free Trade’for national prosperity.
Oh Vietnamese are sufficiently, not so much anti-Chinese, but they are very independent.
There was a period of time a LONG time ago, when Vietnam was, I believe more or less a part of China. The two countries have some similarities, but Vietnam is VERY independent.
Very independent. They are hugely welcoming of foreigners (I think because they went through a period of time recently, when they were very much isolated, and really anti foreigner) but they seem 100% OK with foreigners now. Completely so.
It is a remarkable place. But they are slightly, opposed to Chinese power.
I would say this is the one country in southeast Asia, which is really independent of China.
The systems in the two countries are similar, but Vietnam is very neutral about foreigners now.
China seems to be predatory towards the west, and particularly America.
Vietnam is completely different.
In my view.
“I guess the Vietnamese are wising-up to China”
The USA wised up to China.
The Trump Administration fully expected China to cheat to circumvent any tariffs, by trans-shipping their products through third country “backdoors” like Vietnam (Canada or Mexico). Perhaps they would use little or no domestic content from those countries. Perhaps they would just print a lot of “ Made in Vietnam” stickers, and pay some front man to sign the shipping documents, or set up a shell company (or even a big company) to do it.
That is a big reason why the USA renegotiated its trade deals with all its major trading partners (unprecedented) before the tariffs started - closing backdoors to China was perhaps the biggest single commonality.
Vietnam, if it wants to protect the goose that lays golden eggs for it (access to the US market), had better police to make sure that it does not become a smuggling route for China, which would require the USA to close off that access to them.
30% domestic content is actually a low percentage, to be considered “Made in Vietnam”. They may be consciously opening the door to try to get a good bit of that skim on trans-shipping (Canada used to love it, until USMCA). They might argue to the USA, that until supply chains mature, not all components will be available domestically (true).
The USA will be watching Vietnam and just a few other countries bordering China very closely, as they are the most likely/convenient avenues for Chinese businesses to evade tariffs. Chinese content is the big issue, rather than total domestic content. Korean, Japanese or Indonesian content is not going to raise nearly as much concern.
“There was a period of time a LONG time ago, when Vietnam was, I believe more or less a part of China.”
The Northern part of Vietnam.
There is a longstanding cultural divide in Vietnam.
The North has always been in the cultural sphere of China, even as it drifted in and out of its political sphere.
The South has always been more influenced by the Indian/Khmer/Thai cultural milieu.
Vietnamese know who is a Northerner, and who is a Southerner. It is not all sunshine and roses between them.
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