Quoting Vietnamese media news: On October 29, Vietnam Customs seized the largest commercial fraud case in history. At the port of Vung Tau, Vietnam Customs seized 1.8 million tons of aluminum products that were about to be shipped to the United States. The price is as high as US$4.3 billion. This batch of aluminum products involves forging the country of origin in order to obtain tariff preferences.
At a multi-agency joint meeting on October 28, Nguyễn Văn Cẩn, director of the General Administration of Vietnam Customs and member of the National Anti-Smuggling Committee, emphasized: “This The case involved a local company importing aluminum semi-finished products from China and then reselling these semi-finished products to the United States and other countries.”
This operation is mainly because the tax rate difference is too big Largely, Vietnam’s aluminum products exported to the United States only pay about 15% tax, while China’s aluminum products exported to the United States are subject to up to 374% tax.
As a result, companies in the region have imported more than $4 billion in Chinese semi-finished aluminum products over the past period.
When suspicious signs were discovered, the General Administration of Vietnam Customs jointly conducted inspections with the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) and other agencies. It is worth noting that the General Administration of Customs also cooperates with the US Customs to verify the above cases. In particular, U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents came to Vietnam to coordinate the investigation.
Since this year, “under the supervision of the United States”, Vietnam has begun to crack down more and more severely on Chinese products put on new clothes made in Vietnam. The US Customs explained to Vietnamese Customs: Even if Vietnamese companies importing semi-finished products made in China and then remanufacturing them into actual goods in Vietnam do not comply with the preferential tariff policy.
The United States has fully demonstrated its suppression of Chinese goods, which also makes the “curved export” method of Chinese products through Vietnam unworkable.
Vietnam strictly inspects “origin washing”, and textile foreign trade suffers impact
Since the beginning of this year, Vietnam has introduced a number of new regulations on origins and launched what can be called the most stringent “origin-washing” inspections in history. It can even be said that this wave of new regulations on origins is “customized” for Chinese products, including textiles. Commodity, involving chemical fiber and clothing end products.
In recent years, with the increase in domestic production costs and the impact of preferential tariffs and other policies, some textile companies have moved to Southeast Asian countries such as Vietnam. However, China is still the world’s largest textile producer and exporter. It has the most complete textile industry chain in the world and still crushes its competitors in terms of infrastructure, worker quality, and production efficiency.
Some relatively backward emerging textile countries still rely on China’s textile industry. Take Vietnam as an example. Although Vietnam’s textile industry is developing rapidly, in chemical fibers, fabrics and other textile products It still relies heavily on imports from China, and this gap cannot be bridged in a short period of time.
Although China’s textile industry can currently crush its opponents in both “quality” and “quantity”, China’s textile foreign trade is facing unprecedented challenges due to trade barriers. Nowadays, Vietnam is strictly inspecting the “washing of origin”, and the road of “curved export” for textile foreign traders will be blocked.
Vietnam’s textile industry is very ambitious and we should not underestimate it
Currently, Vietnam has grown into the world’s third largest textile exporter.
On April 24 this year, Deputy Prime Minister Trinh Dinh Dung of the Vietnamese government signed Government Decision No. 18/2019/QĐ-TTg, banning the import of second-hand products with a technology life of 10 years or more. Machinery, equipment and production line technology, this policy has come into effect on June 15, 2019.
This means that Vietnam is not only satisfied with low-profit links such as clothing OEM, but they will directly enter the raw material and fabric market. If all textile companies investing in Vietnam want to continue to enjoy the low tariff policy, the origin of textile raw materials used in the future must be in Vietnam (the proportion of origin in Vietnam must reach 90%).
The “fake export” case seized in Vietnam is also a reminder to Chinese textile people that only pragmatic development and technological advancement can achieve the goal of “I have what others have, and I have what others have” Only by creating differentiated products, high-tech products and forming product technical barriers can we take the initiative in a new round of competition on a larger stage. </p
