The US Department of Commerce (DOC) has once again announced an extension of the deadline on its final conclusion on an anti-dumping and anti-subsidy tax evasion investigation into hardwood plywood imported from Viet Nam, according to the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT).

Specifically, the DOC will issue the conclusion on January 31, 2023.

According to the DOC’s preliminary conclusions announced on July 25, plywood from Viet Nam using materials from China should be subject to the same anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties applied to China. If the materials are produced in Viet Nam or other countries, the products will be exempt from any duties.

Currently, the US is applying an anti-dumping duty of 183.36 per cent and an anti-subsidy tax of 22.98 per cent to 194.9 per cent on the product from China.

Vietnamese exporters and US importers have been allowed to participate in the self-certification mechanism to be excluded from the evasion measure.

However, the self-certification mechanism is not applied to enterprises that fail to provide information or provide incomplete or inaccurate information as requested by the DOC during the investigation.

Statistics show businesses eligible for the self-certification mechanism made up about 80 per cent of Viet Nam’s export value during the investigation period.

Particularly for shipments imported from June 17, 2020 to August 28, 2022, DOC extended the time to complete declarations and supporting documents until December 1, 2022, instead of September 12, 2022 as in the preliminary conclusions.

US customs said Viet Nam’s hardwood plywood exports to the US increased from US$112.3 million in 2018 to $226.4 million in 2019, $248.5 million in 2020 and $356.7 million last year. The export turnover expanded by 57.6 per cent in 2021 compared to the year before the initiation of the investigation. — VNS