According to shocking statistics released by The National Association of Italian Footwear Manufacturers, (ANCI), imports of shoes into Europe from China rose an incredible 600% in just 40 days, following the end of WTO quotas on January 1, 2005.
Rossano Soldini, president of ANCI said: “We are witnessing a flow of imports that will destroy the Italian industry; we expect an urgent reaction from the Italian Government and from Brussels. We expected it. We were even counting down to so-called China Day. We were accused of alarmism, but now I think they believe us."
Thanks to a system of monitoring imports of footwear products into Europe, ANCI was able to follow the trend of shoe purchases from China in real time. The results are surprising, even beyond the most pessimistic projections.
“We are faced with a veritable catastrophe,” Soldini explained. “In only 40 days imports of footwear from China into Europe have increased by 600% in quantity, against a 27.8% decline in pricing. It is an intolerable situation in which our worst forecasts are coming true. China is clearly practising currency dumping, because its money is clearly undervalued, social dumping, because its workers are not guaranteed their rights and underage manpower is often adopted, and environmental dumping, because China can freely dump its industrial waste with no ecological precautions. The extent of the growth in quantity and the reduction in pricing demonstrate, however, that this is a manifest case of dumping.”
While the overall increase in imports was 600% in quantity and 405.6% in value, some products registered much higher increases. This is the case with sandals and low-cut street shoes with leather uppers and natural leather soles, for which imports increased by 1,379.8%.
“The picture that lurks on the horizon,” continued the president of ANCI, “is the rapid dismantling of the European and Italian footwear industry, with the loss of over 12,500 companies and 320,000 employees in Europe and 103,500 jobs and 7,300 companies in Italy. We cannot even imagine the economic cost to our country in terms of growth, but even higher will be the social cost, with hundreds of companies closing their doors and thousands of workers left at home.
"We expect the Italian Government to bring urgent pressure to bear on Brussels, to initiate the antidumping or safeguarding procedures contemplated within the WTO, without excluding clamorous independent gestures. It is a fact that the European Commission has not defended its footwear industry until now, because the countries of Northern Europe are less specifically affected. We must reflect on this, because no further time can be lost waiting for the folks in Brussels to realise the gravity of the situation.”
An initial response has already arrived from the Government. After a meeting with Undersecretary Gianni Letta on January 20, in which Soldini illustrated the principal problems facing the footwear industry and received a commitment from the Italian Government to act as spokesman for national interests in Brussels, the top management of ANCI has been called to Palazzo Chigi for 21 February.
Along with representatives of the textile-apparel sector, Rossano Soldini will be heard by Undersecretary Gianni Letta and by ministers Antonio Marzano, Domenico Siniscalco, Roberto Maroni and Vice Minister Adolfo Urso.
