(VNF)- The Department of Livestock will conduct probes into whether sale of chicken thighs at cheap prices in Vietnam by U.S. businesses is considered dumping while a Georgia-based trade organization has denied such dumping complaints lodged by Vietnamese poultry businesses.

Deputy Director of the department Nguyen Van Trong told a Wednesday press conference that the livestock associations of the Southeast region and Dong Nai province have filed petitions for an anti-dumping investigation into frozen chicken thighs from the US.

The thighs are sold at 20,000 VND (0.92 USD) per kilogram in Vietnam.

Most imported chicken thighs in Vietnam come from the U.S., he said, noting that the products are sold in the US at between 3-3.5 USD (65,000-75,000 VND) per kilogram.

For illustration only. Photo: kelmendicompany.com

The cheap price of US chicken thighs, at 20,000 VND per kg, in Vietnam is quite surprising, he said, adding that products near their expiry dates are usually cheap in the US.

He urged that Vietnamese agencies examine the quality of US-origin imports.

Local consumers are questioning the quality of US chicken thighs as surveys by Vietnamese companies reveal that the product is being sold at much higher prices in the US than in Vietnam, according to Phung Huu Hao – Deputy Director of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development’s Agro-Forestry-Fisheries Quality Assurance Department.

If companies imported cheap frozen thighs and applied false expiry dates, it is trade fraud, he noted.

The Animal Husbandry Association in southeastern Vietnam and its counterpart in the southern province of Dong Nai last week signed petitions for a dumping investigation to be undertaken into U.S.-imported chicken.

Such actions, coupled with several reports from local media that U.S. chicken is being dumped in the Southeast Asian country, have “prompted a strong denial by the head of the USA Poultry & Egg Export Council (USAPEEC),” the association located in Georgia said in a press release on Monday (U.S. time).

USAPEEC president Jim Sumner asserted that U.S. chicken parts are sold in Vietnam at the same or higher prices than in the United States.

The USAPEEC attributed the hardship being undergone by Vietnamese poultry producers to “high prices for feed grains,” implying that imports from the U.S. do not hurt their business.

Sumner noted the USAPEEC is “very sympathetic” that the situation is affecting local producers./.

by VNF