Vietnamese footwear faces anti-dumping suit

14 Mar '06

2 min read

Vietnam's footwear industry faces an anti-dumping case which in turn may render 500,000 footwear workers jobless, a local association said.

Of the nearly 500,000 footwear workers, 80 percent are women, said the Vietnam Leather and Footwear Association (Lefaso).

An investigation by European Commission (EC) has revealed that leather-upper shoes made in some Asian countries sold at below cost in Europe prompting to propose anti-dumping duties of up to 16.8 percent on Vietnamese leather- upper shoes.

The provisional duty will be gradually brought in over a period of six months, beginning initially with about 4 percent from April 7.

Anticipating high duties to affect their product's competitiveness, indications of some foreign footwear enterprises moving out of Vietnam has been observed by Lefaso.

Vietnam exported 265 million pairs of shoes of different kinds to the European Union (EU) last year.

Vietnam earned $582 million supplying various footwear products to world market during first two months of current year, up 30.9 percent year on year.

The footwear export turnover is expected to reach $3.3 billion in 2006, registering a rise of $3 billion compared to 2005, Lefaso said.

Vietnamese footwear firms are being encouraged by Lefaso to increase their business in Japan, the United States, Mexico, Canada, Brazil, South Korea, Central Asia and East Europe.

Vietnamese agencies are going ahead with trade promotional activities, increasing support to leather products manufacturing units and exporters and studying overseas fashion trends to create competitive products.

More Vietnam Leather & Fashion Footware Association News... More Fashion News - China...