The Vietnam Leather and Footwear Association and local leather shoemakers affirmed that they have not dumped their products on the European Union market in the dumping lawsuit brought against Vietnamese leather shoes. They have also raised a question as to why the EU investigators did not base the legal action on the actual activities of Vietnamese enterprises instead depending on unreal data. Therefore, are the results from investigation really transparent and valid as they were concluded from this data alone?
Based on the experience from a recent dumping lawsuit against Vietnamese bicycle makers in which five of them, who have never exported products to the EU, were sued for dumping, the EU should fully consider the transparence of this lawsuit.
From September 21 to October 14, 2005, the EC’s delegation conducted investigations into eight Vietnamese enterprises. On November 18, the EC’s General Trade Department suggested informing related sides of possibility of removing sport shoes produced by special technology (STAF) from local anti-dumping investigation. On November 23, the EC also proposed that the related sides discuss market economic regulations of eight local footwear enterprises. Accordingly, the eight surveyed enterprises failed to satisfy the EC’s set criteria of a market economy.
The Vietnam Leather and Footwear Association and local enterprises have discussed this issue as well as other problems related to the removal of STAF sport shoes and current shoes from investigation.
Dinh My Loan, director of Vietnam’s Competition Management Agency, said that this is the tenth antidumping case that the EC trigged against Vietnamese exporters. During the investigation, Vietnamese enterprises actively joined hands with the EC’s delegation. Most of the 115 Vietnamese enterprises made up an investigation list and a question list asking about market economic regulations.
In fact, as many as 80 per cent of Vietnamese footwear exporters are made for order of foreign companies and did not directly export their products to the EU. They did not decide the selling prices of their products in the EU market so they could not be a danger to the leather and shoe industry of the union.
Meanwhile, the footwear sector plays a very important role to the Vietnamese economy, creating to around 500,000 jobs. 80 per cent of laborers in footwear sector are women, accounting for 6.5 per cent the industrial sector’s labor force. The sector rakes in more than US$2 billion in export turnover and ranks third among industry export sectors after crude oil and textile.
Therefore, possible antidumping lawsuit on Vietnam’s footwear sector will cause a lot of social problems, damaging the Vietnamese economy in general and this young footwear sector in particular. Moreover, it will also cause negative impacts on the EU market’s participants including footwear designers, contributors, retailers and consumers.
According to Pham Van Minh, head of the EU Department, under the Ministry of Trade, the ministry is asking the EC to be fair in the dumping lawsuit against Vietnamese leather shoes in order not to affect the interest of Vietnamese producers and exporters as well as designers, distributors, retailers and 450 million consumers in the EU countries.
Nguyen Gia Thao, chairman of the Vietnam Leather and Footwear Association (Lefaso), proposed that the EC reconsider the conclusion that Vietnamese enterprises are not operating under market economic mechanism as well as requested them to make their decision based on the real situation of Vietnamese enterprises.
Kim Phuong
Vietnamese
