Lefaso Protests EU's 10 per cent Duty on Vietnam Shoes

Vietnam's Leather and Shoe Association (Lefaso) has once again raised objections to the European Union (EU)'s decision to levy an anti-dumping duty of 10 per cent on Vietnamese leather-capped shoe imports as protectionism of a few producers in the bloc.

 

The EU yesterday October 4 in Brussels decided to impose anti-dumping duty of 10 per cent on Vietnamese shoes – a drop from 16.8 per cent and 16.5 per cent on Chinese shoes in place of the current 19.4 per cent, for two years to tackle cheap imports from the two Asian countries.

 

The vote to pass the measures for two years resulted in a 13 to 12 majority in the 25-nation bloc. The measures will be officially approved today (October 5) by EU ministers to be applied for two years in stead of five years as proposed by the EC earlier. After two years, they will be reconsidered. Experts, however, said the review would be able to last in one year more. 

 

The vote allows the measures to come into effect from this Saturday (October 7). Nine EU members supported the new tariff for the next two years, 12 opposed and four abstained from voting.

 

Lefaso President Nguyen Gia Thao on October 4 ruled out any violations of international trade rules, emphasizing that Vietnam has never dumped its shoes on the EU market and the Vietnam Government has not given any subsidies to its leather shoe industry.

He said the final damage by the EU's duties plan has not yet been calculated at this point as it depends on how much of the value of the coming contracts that will be, but it is certain that it will affect the jobs of between 60,000 and 70,000 workers in the industry and some small-scaled enterprises will face bankruptcy.

EU's anti-dumping measures will not only cause difficulties in life for more than half a million of Vietnamese workers who are permanent staffs of the leather and shoe industry but also many others whose jobs are in service of the industry, who are already living under the poverty line, the association president stressed.

Foreign news agencies reported that EU shoe makers such as ECCO and Timberland, which have shifted their production to Asian markets for cheap labor costs, have also raised opposition against EU's duties plan as their imports will also be hit by new anti-dumping tariffs.

EU importers and retail sales companies also joined the protest line in fear of increasing prices of their goods.

Pro-free trade North European countries continued to oppose protectionism and pledged not to compromise in the fight for a free and fair market economy in the European Union.

 

A foreign source said half of the total of 2.5 billion of pairs of shoes sold in the EU last year were imported from China and 174 million pairs would be levied with anti-dumping tariffs.

 

Meanwhile, Vietnam in 2005 shipped 265 million pairs of shoes to the EU and 103 million pairs would be slapped with a duty of 10 per cent.