This decision was taken at the 10th administrative review (POR 10), according to a notice of the International Trade Administration (ITA) on March 10.

The POR10 was requested on 51 Vietnamese shrimp exporters, including two mandatory respondents, Minh Phú Group and Sóc Trang Seafood JSC (Stapimex).

Mandatory respondents are exporters selected for individual investigation by the DOC as part of its countervailing duty review, whereas exporters that are not initially chosen for investigation but wish to participate, and are accepted by DOC, are voluntary respondents.

According to the preliminary results of the POR10, sales by Minh Phú Group and Stapimex to the US, the two mandatory respondents, were made below normal value, and, therefore, are subject to anti-dumping duties.

The duty on Minh Phú Group was initially set at 2.86 per cent, higher than the rate 1.39 per cent in POR9, while Stapimex was subject to a tariff at 4.78 per cent.

Anti-dumping duty on voluntary respondents was preliminarily established at 3.56 per cent, nearly four times higher than the official 0.91 per cent set in POR9.

The tariff on other Vietnamese firms, those exporters not examined as mandatory or voluntary respondents in the POR10, remains at 25.76 per cent, according to preliminary results.

The official duty at the POR 10 was scheduled to release in July.

In addition, in separate Federal Register notices published on March 1, the US Department of Commerce (DoC) and the US International Trade Commission (ITC) announced the initiation of Five-Year Sunset Reviews of the anti-dumping duty orders on certain frozen warm-water shrimps from Brazil, China, India, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Vietnam’s General Department of Customs said Vietnam’s export value of shrimp to the US in 2015 reduced 38.3 per cent year-on-year to US$657 million.