Shoe-makers battle dumping claim
By Jiang Wei (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-07-20 08:59
And the union will collect punitive duties of up to 23 per cent for leather
shoes from China and 29.5 for Vietnamese shoes, sold over the annual
quotas.
"We have already submitted our opinion on the final ruling," Wu
said in a telephone interview yesterday.
He said the proposal indicated
the EU's attempt to re-introduce quotas for shoe imports, which were eliminated
among World Trade Organization members at the beginning of last year, and
violated free trade rules.
The proposal has aroused great concerns in
China's shoe-making industry.
Yu Shengxing, a lawyer who represents
Chinese firms in the case, said he was worried the proposal would drive Chinese
exporters into a price war.
He said with EU importers only allowed a
limited number of imports every year, Chinese firms would be forced to slash
prices to win contracts.
The European Commission is expected to publish
its official final rulings before October 6 after a vote of member states. The
quota-based system is likely to take effect before next April.
Worried
about increasing footwear imports from China flooding its markets and hurting
local shoe-makers, the European economic bloc launched a dumping charge against
Chinese leather shoe makers last July.
The EU is now phasing in
anti-dumping duties, which will be increased up to 19.4 per cent by October, on
Chinese leather shoes.
China exported 6.9 billion pairs of shoes to
Europe last year.
(For more biz stories, please visit Industry Updates)
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