Vietnam Shoes Facing High Risks of EC's Punitive Duty Imposition

Vietnamese leather shoes are now confronting a very high possibility of being imposed with anti-dumping duties by the European Commission (EC), says the Vietnam Leather and Footwear Association (Lefaso).

The pressure is growing when Austria, a EU member country, has expressed its agreement to the plan to slap anti-dumping tariffs on shoe imports from Vietnam and China instead of protesting opinion as before, the association says.

 

Austria has suggested adopting a duty of 10 per cent on leather shoe imports from Vietnam and 16.5 per cent in the case of China within one year and then the duties will be considered and readjusted.

 

To date, a majority of EU members have agreed to the plan to apply anti-dumping duties on leather-capped shoes imported from the two Asian countries, Lefaso said, adding that it, however, still continues to oppose the plan and affirms Vietnam does not dump its shoes on the EU market.

 

Vietnam’s footwear exports to the European Union (EU) market was estimated to increase by 15 per cent on-year to US$1.17 billion in the first eight months of 2006, accounting for some 50 per cent of the country’s total shoe export revenue in the period.

 

Despite the EC’s punitive duty, the footwear industry sees an on-year increase of 21.7 per cent to reach more than US$2.4 billion in the eight-month period.

 

This year, the industry expects to earn some US$3.5 billion of export revenues, up 16-17 per cent against 2005.