Alert! Vietnam is cracking down on and punishing Chinese products for Posting fake "made in Vietnam" certificates of origin to avoid a trade war.
Vietnam customs has found dozens of cases of Chinese products evading US tariffs on Chinese products through "counterfeiting of origin" and "illegal transshipment" during the ongoing trade dispute with the US, Reuters quoted a Vietnamese customs statement on June 9 as saying.
Screenshot of Vietnamese government portal
Vietnam customs said it would crack down on such activities and impose heavy penalties. Vietnam's exports to the United States are surging since trade tensions between the two countries escalated this year, bloomberg reported June 10. While there is evidence that some of the increase is due to a shift in supply chains to Vietnam, analysts question just how much of the surge is legitimate exports.
The fake origin and illegal transshipment of goods mostly occurred in the textile, seafood, agricultural products, ceramic tile, honey, steel, aluminum and wood products industries, the customs statement said.
Cases of fraud uncovered by the Vietnamese government include packaging of Chinese products changed to "made in Vietnam" and fake certificates of origin for re-export to the United States. In one example cited in the statement, U.S. customs recently discovered that "made in Vietnam" plywood sold to the United States by a Vietnamese company was actually made in China.
Do Van Sinh, a member of the economic affairs committee of Vietnam's national assembly, said Vietnam could be punished by the United States for allowing fake Chinese products into the country. Vietnam customs is developing a process to better identify and punish companies involved in violations, the statement said.
Just last month, the US Treasury put Vietnam on a "currency manipulator" watch list. In other words, Vietnam may already be under intense us scrutiny.
Vietnam is by far the biggest winner from the us-china trade war. With the US government imposing tariffs on $250bn of Chinese imports and threatening to impose tariffs on the remaining $300bn of Chinese goods, some exporters are diverting orders to avoid the duties, bloomberg said.