The US Department of Commerce (DOC) has initiated trade investigations on hard capsule pharmaceutical shells imported from Việt Nam, Brazil, China and India, the Ministry of Industry and Trade announced on Thursday.

Products from all four countries are being investigated for anti-dumping and countervailing duties.

The complainant, Lonza Greenwood LLC, alleges that two Vietnamese companies dumped prices and received subsidies for two types of hard capsule shells – products with Harmonised System (HS) codes 9602.00.1040 and 9602.00.5010 – when exporting to the US market.

The anti-dumping investigation will be conducted for products exported to the US from April 2024 to September 2024, while the countervailing investigation will be for products exported throughout 2023.

An investigation into damages allegedly caused to domestic US companies will look into products exported to the US from January 2021 to June 2024.

The alleged dumping margin for Việt Nam is from 63.53 per cent to 86.04 per cent.

Prices from Indonesia will be used as surrogate values to calculate the dumping margin for Việt Nam, as the US considers Việt Nam a non-market economy.

According to data from the US International Trade Commission (ITC), hard capsule shell imports from Việt Nam accounted for about 12 per cent of the total shell imports being investigated.

The total value of the pharmaceutical shells that the US imported from Việt Nam in 2023 was approximately US$26 million. The value of the shells imported from China was $49 million, from India $67 million, and from Brazil $4 million.

Regarding the countervailing duty allegations, after reviewing the complainant's claims and request, the DOC initiated an investigation into 27 subsidy programmes from the Vietnamese Government that are believed to benefit Vietnamese hard capsule shell manufacturers and exporters, and which allegedly caused or are threatening to cause significant harm to the US domestic industry. — VNS