Vietnam Calls on EU Not to Review Punitive Duty on Shoes

Vietnam has called on the European Union (EU) not to review its anti-dumping tax levied on Vietnamese leather-capped shoes and let the current tariff period go to an end on October 7. 

 

Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Le Danh Vinh made the call at a press briefing on the E.U.’s expiry review that was held in Brussels Sept 15.

 

Deputy Minister Vinh stressed: “Once again, we would like to confirm that Vietnamese businesses did not dump leather-capped shoes on the EU market, and the products neither caused nor threatened to cause losses to the EU’s footwear industry.”

 

He went on to say that the application and review of the anti-dumping tax was unjust, particularly in the context that the EU has decided to remove imported Vietnamese footwear from its generalized system of preferences (GSP) as from Jan 2009.

 

The deputy minister told the press that the European Commission (EC) decided to impose an import duty of 10 per cent on Vietnam-made shoes with leather uppers for two years and the duty was to expire on October 7, 2008.

 

He noted that the measure was supported by the smallest majority of the E.U. states after their critical debates.

 

According to Vinh, the punitive tariff imposition has caused harm to EU consumers as well as Vietnamese producers and workers. It also affected the Vietnam-EU economic and trade relations. “Vietnam’s forte in skillful labor and EU’s strengths in designs, equipment and technologies were not fully tapped,” he said.

 

The Vietnamese official reiterated that Vietnam is a market-oriented economy and the Government cannot subsidize enterprises while enterprises themselves are unable to make dumping as they are only small and medium-scaled ones.

 

The anti-dumping tariff imposition on Vietnam’s leather footwear was only to protect the benefit of some E.U. footwear producers but not the real interests of E.U. consumers, he said.

 

Vice Chairman of the Vietnam Leather and Footwear Association Nguyen Thi Tong told the press that the EU tariff imposition has been seriously affecting the life of 1 million workers in the local footwear industry, most of them are women and poor people.

 

Due to the tariff, Vietnamese leather-capped shoe exports to the E.U. market have reduced considerably.

 

On Sept 16, the Ministry of Industry and Trade issued a press release delivering the Vietnamese Government’s official viewpoint against the EU’s anti-dumping tariff imposition on leather-capped shoes imported from Vietnam and China.

 

It said the BEUC, Eurocommerce, and AEDT, which represent thousands of EU’s retailers and wholesalers, had also released a joint press release asking the EU to stop levying anti-dumping tariff on Vietnamese and Chinese leather-capped shoes. (VNA, VietNamNet)