The European Commission agreed on Thursday to adopt duties on shoe imports from China and Vietnam in a dispute over alleged dumping of cheap footwear from the two countries. Trade commissioner Peter Mandelson has proposed duties of 16.8 percent against Vietnam and 19.4 percent on China, to be phased in over five months, starting at 4 percent in April. The tariffs will add about 1.44 euros to the price of a pair of shoes, and to help poor families, the duties will not be imposed on children's leather shoes.
"These anti-dumping measures will correct the injury caused to European leather shoe producers. It is important that we act against unfair trade while encouraging legitimate and competitive from emerging economies," said EU trade commissioner, Peter Mandelson. "We do not target China and Vietnam? natural competitive advantages, only unfair distortions of trade," he added.
Some European countries such as Italy and Portugual oppose cheap imported shoes from Asia, worried about the effect these have on their own footwear industries. But consumers and retailers in many European countries like them. China has urged the EU to reconsider its action, saying there is no evidence of dumping and questions, that the duties are unfair, questioning whether these conform with World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules.
China's rapidly growing economy and the end of long-running global fabrics quotas agreement on 1 January, 2005, has triggered a surge in exports of Chinese clothing and textiles products, and to the United States and EU bringing in new temporary quotas under WTO rules.
In July and August last year, China breached its quotas in six out of ten clothing categories covered by a deal agreed last June by Mandelson and China's trade minister Bo Xilai in Shanghai. This resulted in the impounding of 80 million bras, T-shirts and textiles in ports across Europe.
The bottleneck drove a wedge between textile manfacturers and retailers, who warned they would be forced to lay off staff or could even go out of business. The dispute was only resolved when the EU allowed 40 million of the 80 million impounded garments piled up at European ports to be added to China's 2005 export quotas, and the remaining 40 million items to be deducted from its 2006 quotas.
