Complaints concerning goods origin arise because trading partners suspect forgery of signatures of persons authorized to sign C/Os and of C/O issuing organizations under Vietnamese law in cases involving illegal transshipment or goods that do not qualify as Vietnamese origin.

Mr. Chau Viet Bac, Deputy Secretary General of VIAC, said that by the end of December 2018, the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry had received 110 letters requesting re-verification of 287 certificates of origin (C/O). VCCI had responded to 105 verification requests and verified 237 sets of documents.

Goods commonly subject to verification requests included vehicles, tires, screws, clothing, ceramic tiles, shrimp, food, gloves, leather and footwear. The EU market accounted for 90%, while the remaining 10% came mainly from Taiwan, India, Turkey and Iraq.

Suspicions that goods did not meet Vietnamese-origin criteria mainly concerned sensitive products subject to trade-remedy duties that were exported in large quantities, or products for which Vietnam’s production capacity was questioned.

A notable example occurred in 2016, when Vietnam imported more than one million tonnes of aluminum while exports declared as Vietnamese-origin aluminum were relatively limited, leading to investigations into the origin of the product.

The US-China trade war also raised concerns about goods-origin fraud and increased trade-remedy measures in the US market against Vietnamese exports. This affects not only legitimate businesses but also the process of origin investigations.

According to Mr. Chau Viet Bac, practical experience shows that during origin inspections Vietnamese enterprises still encounter problems with documents, data and production facilities that fail to satisfy inspection requirements. To proactively respond, management of documents relating to goods origin and prices must therefore be professional. Enterprises need to retain and manage origin documentation so that it is readily available for inspection.