(Vietnamplus, 29/06/2010)

The request comes in the wake that the EC’s anti-dumping duty on bikes imported from Vietnam will expire on July 15 and that the agency will decide on whether it will review the duty for extension or not.

According to the Vietnamese Foreign Ministry, the country’s representative offices in the European Union, especially in Belgium , Germany , the Netherlands , France and Italy , which have involved directly in the case, met with representatives from the EC Directorate General for Trade and the European Bicycle Manufacturers’ Association (EBMA) and relevant agencies to lobby on the issue.

The Vietnamese representative offices emphasised that the EC’s imposition of anti-dumping duty on imported Vietnamese bike was a wrong and unjust decision, reflecting its imposition that does not go with the World Trade Organisation’s regulations and the growing economic-trade ties between Vietnam and the EU.

The offices also voiced that the EC’s anti-dumping duty imposition has affected Vietnam ’s bike industry and its workers negatively and caused bad effects socially.

Since the EU levied the anti-dumping duty, Vietnam has suffered a drop of 50 folds in its bike export to the EU market, from 1,067,772 units in 2005, or 11.09 percent of the market share, to 21,421 units in 2009.

Accordingly, the Vietnam bike industry has been bogged down in serious difficulties with many manufacturers going to bankruptcy or changing to other forms of production.

Particularly, the number of workers in the industry was axed from 210,000 in 2005 to only 5,000 as reported at the beginning of this year.

After hearing technical reports presented by the Vietnamese representative offices in the EU, the EU counterparts noted the information and the situation of the Vietnamese bike industry and pledged to consider the issue regarding both sides’ interest and the entire EU-Vietnam economic-trade ties./.

Vietnam requests EC to lift anti-dumping duty on its bike