[Canton Fair] China's shoe enterprises cold look at the EU to cancel anti-dumping on Chinese shoes

With the EU's anti-dumping duties on Chinese shoes officially ended on March 31, 2011, the anti-dumping of EU shoes over China for the past five years has already ended. However, the “reduce” Chinese shoe exporters' response at the 109th Canton Fair was not as pleasing as the outside world had imagined. Being calm and prudent is their common choice.

In order to protect the interests of some shoe manufacturers in southern Europe, the EU formally imposed anti-dumping duties on leather shoes imported from China from October 2006, with a maximum tax rate of 16.5%. In December 2009, the European Union decided to review the anti-dumping measures for Chinese leather shoes for an additional period of 15 months and expired in March 2011.

In the economic environment of increasing labor costs, rising raw material prices, and frequent exchange rate fluctuations, the elimination of anti-dumping duties by the European Union is undoubtedly a good news for Chinese export shoe companies. However, a number of exhibitors said on the 2nd that they must not be blindly optimistic. The EU's newly introduced monitoring measures should be more concerned about.

Pang Xinwu, manager of Zhejiang Gu'ao’s footwear business, which accounts for 70% of the company's exports, said that after the EU’s anti-dumping duties on Chinese shoes were abolished, the most direct benefit of Chinese shoe companies was that cost pressures were reduced, but the price advantage of Chinese leather shoes was Gradually weakening, is far from the quality of the opponents of foreign producers, the EU's move will not bring much benefit. He believes that Chinese shoe companies must improve product quality, establish brand awareness, and take the high-end line in order to gain a firm foothold in the international market.

Mr. Qian, chairman of Wenzhou Dina Fanda Regal Footwear Co., Ltd., said that he hopes to take this opportunity to expand his market share in the European Union. Due to the existence of a variety of uncertainties in the international market, all parties, including EU merchants, have a wait-and-see attitude. At present, the company’s export orders for EU leather shoes have not changed significantly. On the other hand, trade protection measures such as “technical barriers” to the EU footwear industry in China are bound to exist, and the situation should not be overly optimistic.

Mr. Qian said that in order to enhance the competitiveness of the product market, his company has partnered with a leading Italian shoe company to build a factory in mainland China. It is expected that it will be put into production in June and will further expand into emerging markets such as Africa and South America in the future.

A company unwilling to disclose its name stated that while the EU eliminated the anti-dumping duties on Chinese shoes, it also introduced a number of monitoring measures, including one-on-one key weekly monitoring to ensure that there was no unfair behavior and concern for Chinese shoe companies enjoying various types of government. Subsidy situation and so on. The person in charge of the company believes that how to strengthen coordination within the industry to avoid repeating the same mistakes is a problem that China’s export shoe companies must face in the future.

The reporter noted that since the anti-dumping duties of the European Union were directed against leather shoes and the shoes made of artificial leather were not within the scope of anti-dumping, some exhibitors mainly engaged in the production of artificial leather shoes began to worry about the pressure from the EU to cancel the anti-dumping domestic competitors. Wang Xiaotao, business manager of international trade department of Guangzhou Ronnali Trading Co., Ltd., said that orders from European buyers for artificial leather shoes will be reduced, but the impact may not be too great.