The labeling of products as “Made-in-Vietnam” aimed to benefit from free tradeagreements to which the country is a member and to avoid trade defencemechanisms by importing countries.
The department said that origin fraud wouldnot only negatively affect the products and the local industry but alsoundermine the competitiveness of made-in-Vietnam products. It added that anumber of traders remained unaware of the impact of origin fraud on thecountry’s production.
Vietnam does not have regulations on labelingproducts as "Made-in-Vietnam", thus, consumers did not know whether the productswere truly made in Vietnam or not.
Therefore, detailed regulations for labelingproducts as “Made in Vietnam” are needed to create a legal framework preventingfraud as well as protecting local production and consumers.
Most recently, the Ministry of Industry and Trade urged supervision to beenhanced on certificates of origin for Vietnamese electric bikes over worriesabout fraud after Vietnam’s electric bike exports to the European Unionincreased sharply coinciding with the European Commission’s imposition ofanti-dumping duties on products from China.
The ministry said that it is pressing to develop regulations on labeling, inwhich products must meet certain criteria.
It added that many countries had detailedregulations about labeling their products such as Switzerland’s regulations forwatches, the US’ for automobiles and garment products and New Zealand’s forwine.
The criteria could be developed for labelingproducts as ‘Made in …’, ‘produced in…’, ‘designed by/in…’, ‘assembled in…’,‘processed in…’, ‘packaged in…’ or ‘imported by/for…’.
Many countries impose heavy punishments forviolations. For example, producers who labeled ‘Made in Italy’ for leatherproducts which did not meet established criteria could be fined up to 100,000EUR (113,000 USD). In Canada, any violations which caused misunderstandingabout products could be fined up to 15 million USD or even imprisonment fromone to 14 years.
According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the labeling would first be ona voluntary basis, adding that producers must be able to prove that theproducts met the established criteria when required. Later, the labeling couldbe compulsory for several products.-VNA