China to appeal EU shoe tariffs

China's shoe makers will appeal Europe's decision to slap anti-dumping tariffs on their leather products amid concerns the duties will have a major impact on local industry, state press said. Chinese shoe manufacturers have set up a three mln yuan fund to challenge the European Commission's decision announced yesterday to impose temporary duties from April 7 over allegations of unfair trade.

"A number of domestic firms will jointly put forward their case (to the EU) and we hope to get a favourable outcome at the final rulings in about six months," Wu Zhenchang, an industry leader, told the China Daily newspaper. Wu is the chairman of Chuangxin Footwear in southern China's Guangdong province, where around half of the nation's shoe exports are made, and helped set up an industry coalition to defend Europe's anti-dumping accusations.

"We will invite European lawyers to plead our case against the duty," the China Business News quoted Wu as saying. EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said the duties would be imposed on Chinese and Vietnamese leather shoes because the governments and manufacturers in those countries had been engaged in unfair trade practices.

The duties are to be imposed gradually over five months and will rise to 19.4 pct for leather shoes from China and 16.8 pct for leather shoes from Vietnam. Children's shoes are not covered by the measures."We do not target China and Vietnam's natural competitive advantages, only unfair distortions of trade," Mandelson said. The commission said the duties were needed because Chinese and Vietnamese manufactures enjoyed state aid in the form of soft loans, tax breaks, low rents, fuzzy accounting and export incentives. China's state-run news agency said Europe's decision would have a major impact on the local shoe making industry, with profit margins already extremely slim.