The Sino-American trade war is at its peak and as it would have been companies with China connections are trying all possible tricks in the book to evade paying increased US tariffs, imposed on imports from China.
The first to make headline in this regard was when Vietnam customs agency maintained that it found dozens of fake product-origin certificates and illegal transfers by companies trying to sidestep US tariffs on everything from agriculture to textiles and steel. Vietnam is one of the first from Asia to publicly allege such malpractices since trade tensions between the world’s two biggest economies escalated.
The statement from Vietnam, which pledged to increase penalties on trade-related fraud, adds to concerns that some Chinese exporters are illegally rerouting orders after Trump administration imposed tariffs on US $ 250 billion of Chinese goods and threatened to target an additional US $ 300 billion.
The next to hog the limelight was when US authorities reportedly discovered several businesses transshipping goods through a Chinese-owned special economic zone in Cambodia in an attempt to disguise the country of origin clause.
These violations were reportedly found being committed by companies located in Cambodia’s Sihanoukville Special Economic Zone, an area developed in partnership with China as a part of its Belt and Road initiative. The zone, located adjacent to Cambodia’s only deep-water port, is a hub for factories that produce shoes, textiles, furniture, electronics and other goods.
“The Department of Homeland Security has inspected and fined a number of companies for evading tariffs in the United States by routing goods through Cambodia,” said a US Embassy spokesman speaking to a news agency.
It may be mentioned here that both Vietnam and Cambodia are expected to be the beneficiaries of the trade sanctions imposed by US on China.
If US’s imports from China fell by 13.9 per cent in the first quarter of 2019, imports from Vietnam on the contrary grew by 40 per cent, in the same period.
