EuroCommerce, the retail, wholesale and international trade representation to the EU, on Oct. 12 urged the bloc to remove the anti-dumping duties on shoe imports from China and Vietnam from January 2010.
EuroCommerce General Secretary Xavier Durier said that the extension of penalty taxes on Chinese and Vietnamese shoe imports, which were first applied in 2006, may cause a reduction in purchasing power and make it hard for the EU economy to recover.
The French news agency AFP said on Oct. 8 that the European Commission has proposed to extend penalty taxes on Chinese and Vietnamese shoe imports by another 15 months.
At present, EU anti-dumping measures levy import duties of 16.5 percent on Chinese shoes with leather uppers and 10 percent on the same kind of shoes from Vietnam.
Distributors of those products said that the measure caused great losses to EU importers, distributors and consumers and that this was not a solution to difficulties that European producers meet when they compete with producers from the two Asian countries./.