The US Commerce Department on 11 January began monitoring imports of five broad groups of products made in Vietnam – shirts, trousers, sweaters, underwear and swimwear.
The administration will consider self-initiating anti-dumping cases every six months based on the collected information. The cases are intended to combat unfairly priced imports and, if successful, impose five years’ worth of duties.
Vietnam made up 4.3 percent of the U.S. apparel import market for the year ended Nov. 30, with shipments of 956.4 million-square-meter equivalents, valued at $3.3 billion. Freed of quotas, the country is poised to expand quickly, but the monitoring program and any resulting anti-dumping cases might moderate that growth.
NCTO