Puma says anti-dumping duties “make no sense”
At a Puma event on April 13 to launch a new element of the brand’s sustainability strategy, the sportswear brand’s CEO, Jochen Zeitz, spoke frankly to leatherbiz.com about the impact anti-dumping has had on the company.
“When anti-dumping goes away, we’ll be able to increase our use of recycled material,” Mr Zeitz. “This is about the extra money the anti-dumping measures are costing us. When we don’t have that extra expense any more we will be able to invest more in new projects. It’s costing us money. It’s useless and it takes up resources. When it ends, we’ll have more resources to invest.
“We do have a strategy for manufacturing closer to the point of consumption, but it would not be affordable to try to manufacture the volumes we need in Europe today. We will be sourcing some products from Turkey, though. We are looking at setting up factories in India to supply the Indian market, rather than bringing products into that market from China, and we will have factories in Argentina and Brazil to supply the Latin American market.”
Leatherbiz.com challenged Mr Zeitz on his view of anti-dumping, pointing out that one of the things that makes Puma a desirable brand is that it is a European brand and to sustain this desirability, European brands need a supply base in Europe. It was put to him that if there is dumping and it is not opposed there is a risk of losing brands and, therefore, the supply base.
He responded by saying: “All right, but we are not dumping anything and we are being made to pay. At our price point, there is no dumping. They should be going after the companies at the cheaper end, the ones who pay no attention whatsoever to social responsibility or the environment.
“There are companies that should be investing and are not, and we who are not responsible for dumping are being made to pay. That’s why this whole thing makes no sense.”
In 2006, the European Commission introduced anti-dumping duties on Chinese and Vietnamese leather shoes. The duties, currently 16.5% and 10% respectively, were extended in January 2010 for a further 15 months.
