Thirteen European countries, led by Sweden, vetoed legislation that would place five years of anti-dumping duties on leather footwear produced in China and Vietnam. Unless other legislation is passed, this will now cause the current duties, designed to protect Italian footwear manufacturers, to lapse in two months.
According to published reports, China supplied half of the 2.5 billion pairs of shoes sold in Europe last year and the EU’s trade deficit with China was a record 100 billion ($128 billion) in 2005.
Industry watchers feel that it is now likely that the EU will create a quota system to allow limited numbers of shoes into the country before tariffs are imposed. Italian footwear trade groups are strictly opposed to this idea and have successfully lobbied against it in the past.
