EU talking to Vietnam about shoe duty alternatives
BRUSSELS - The European Union is in talks with Vietnam about alternatives to long-term anti-dumping duties on leather shoe imports from the Asian country, the bloc's trade chief said on Monday.
The EU imposed duties rising to nearly 20 percent on leather shoes made in Vietnam and China last month but has yet to decide whether to make them definitive -- lasting for five years -- from October.
European Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said the EU was in talks with Vietnam about alternatives to the duties which Vietnam has said will harm local manufacturers and cost jobs.
"I don't want any solution that is going to do undue harm to Vietnam which is why we have been open to the possibility of finding an alternative approach," he told the European Parliament's trade committee.
Mandelson later told reporters there were many permutations for an agreement and Vietnam had proposed the possibility of "deferred tariffs."
Such an idea might include quotas limiting the volume of exports for a period before anti-dumping tariffs are applied.
Mandelson also said the EU was open to discussing alternatives to the duties with China.
He is due to visit China next week.
The 25-nation EU includes countries with big shoe industries of their own such as Italy. It imposed the tariffs provisionally in April after saying it had found evidence of state intervention helping shoe exporters in Vietnam and China.
Both countries denied dumping was taking place and some of the world's biggest shoemakers, including Timberland and Wolverine , have said the anti-dumping measures hurt their profits and are not justified.
Reuters - May 30, 2006.
|