Anti-dumping duty on footwear unfair: Deputy Minister

02 Jan '10

2 min read

Vietnamese Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade, Mr. Le Danh Vinh termed imposition of anti-dumping duties on Vietnamese footwear by the European Commission as unfair, and said that it does not reveal the true conditions of the Vietnamese footwear industry.

The Minister was addressing media professionals in Hanoi. He said that most of the Vietnamese enterprises are small and medium-sized and Vietnamese leather uppers contribute to just 10 percent in overall import volume of European Union.

He further added that this shows that the Vietnamese companies had not at all dumped their products at low rates to kill the competition or to add more market share and in no way threatened production and business of European footwear manufacturers.

The footwear industry of Vietnam that employees more than 65,000 poor people, particularly women, has been hit hard due to EU's anti-dumping duty. During first nine months of the current year, export of leather uppers to EU slipped down by 11.2 percent compared to same period of previous year.

The Minister said that, protecting less competitive local footwear producers of EU is the only reason behind continuing the anti-dumping measure, which has impacted the sale of Vietnamese footwear in markets of EU which is made up of millions of consumers.

Moreover, imposition of this duty on import of leather uppers from Vietnam affects the development of economic and trade relations between Vietnam and the European Union, added the Minister.

Fibre2fashion News Desk - India

More General News - Vietnam...