Shoe manufacturing groups react to anti-dumping vote
20/11/2009
The president of the Spanish National Footwear Federation (FICE), Rafael Calvo, has given his reaction to the vote in Brussels on November 19 in which a majority of trade representatives of the 27 member states of the European Union voted against a proposed extension of anti-dumping measures against shoe imports from Vietnam and China.
European footwear manufacturers insist that their competitors in the two Asian countries are still receiving unfair assistance to be able to keep their export prices falsely low.
Mr Calvo said that no one in the debate regarded the proposed extension of 15 months as satisfactory. "But it least it would mean recognition that the practice of dumping is still going on and still causing harm to the industry in Europe. What's happening, though, is that the voices with an interest on the other side of the argument are getting louder all the time."
The Italian Footwear Manufacturers’ Association (ANCI) has expressed disappointment at the vote in Brussels.
ANCI has consistently been the most vocal group arguing that unfair practices that allow competitor manufacturers in Asia to offer falsely low export prices make the footwear playing field uneven.
The association's director, Fabio Aromatici, told leathearbiz.com: "We are not particularly surprised, but we are disappointed. Dumping is still going on; that's the technical outcome of the review process that the European Commission has been engaged in for the last year. We have tried our best to communicate this clearly, but our resources are greatly inferior to those of the companies that have lobbied against the duties (16% on shoes made in China and 10% on those from Vietnam)."
But Mr Aromatici insisted this was not the end. The information will now go for review by the European Commissioners and from there to the Council of the European Commission. If, during this process, two member states change their minds and decide to support the continuation of the anti-dumping measures, the duties could stay in place for a further 15 months. The trade experts from 15 member states voted against keeping the measures; 10 voted in favour and two, Slovaki and Lithuania, abstained. However, in this case, abstentions count in favour of keeping anti-dumping.
"It's not a binding vote, and we are still optimistic," he explained.
He said that some member states were broadly in favour of keeping the measures in place this time, but wanted Europe's footwear manufacturers to accept that, after the extra 15 months, there would be no further extensions. ANCI and similar bodies in Spain, Portugal, France, Poland and Romania, as well as the umbrella organisation in Brussels, CEC, do not want to put a time limit on anti-dumping; they want to have the freedom to ask the European Commission to take steps to readdress the balance each and every time they believe, and can prove, that competition has become unfair.
"We've already compromised," he concluded. "When you prove a case of anti-dumping, the measures are normally put in place for five years. Fifteen months is far from what we would have wanted, and we asked the European Commission to consider putting the duties in place for two-and-a-half years this time. But 15 months is what we have been offered."
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