Lexis Nexis
...MONITORING PROGRAM AT 1ST HEARING
LENGTH: 727 words
from the VIETNAM NEWS BRIEFS, May 2, 2007 Many US businesses have raised strong concerns over the US Department of Commerce (DOC)'s decision to consider implementing a monitoring mechanism for textile and apparel imports from Vietnam at the first hearing on the issue in Washington D.C April 24, Vietnam News Agency reports. At the DOC hearing, up to 10 out of 12 ideas disagreed with the program, the agency said. Nguyen Duy Khien, chief of the Vietnamese Trade Ministry's representative office in the US, strongly protested against the mechanism. He de-scribed it as discrimination running counter to the most important guiding principles of the World Trade Organization (WTO). "This program also runs contrary to Article XXIII of the GATT agreement as it nullifies the benefits of the WTO and seriously prejudices the interests Vietnam should rightfully anticipate from the WTO agreement," the trade official said, adding that this mechanism violated the WTO agreement on anti-dumping and caused harm to both Vietnam and US importers.
The DOC opened the hearing in order to hear arguments from both supporters and detractors of the establishment of the mechanism on apparel imported from Vietnam. David Spooner, chief of the DOC's imports section, who went to Vietnam April 19 to hear opinions of Vietnamese exporters, said the monitoring program the US intends to estab-lish would not necessarily translate into anti-dumping actions. However, representatives of Vietnamese clothing ex-porters to the US were still frustrated that the looming threat of a US monitoring program is already crippling their production plans. Deputy Director Nguyen Thanh Binh of the Hanoi Textile and Apparel Company, the largest exporter to the US market, said local producers like her must scale back production as it is currently...
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