2010 China Shoes Decisive Battle EU Court (2)

"Chinese shoes" can not bear the heavy

The rise of China's footwear industry has shaken the monopoly position of the European Union countries, such as Italy and Spain, which originally dominated the footwear industry. Some European countries, which are afraid of losing dominance, have launched the "barrier" action that restricts the Chinese shoe industry to enter the European market in the name of protecting their footwear industry and maintaining prices. Since the early 90s of last century, the import quotas limit had been imposed on Chinese leather shoes. The decision lasted 14 years until China joined the WTO.

But this joy is only a flash in the pan for Chinese shoe companies.

In 2006, the European Union moved out.

According to the China Commercial Daily reporter, in 2006, China's footwear products accounted for about 52% of the world's total, while the EU has always been the largest export market for Chinese footwear, especially leather shoes.

According to statistics from the China light industry technology import and export chamber, the total sales volume of footwear products exported to Europe reached 1 billion 780 million euros last year, and this amount exceeded 2 billion euros during the peak period.

Since the implementation of the anti-dumping duty measures by the European Union, Chinese shoe enterprises have been significantly adversely affected. According to the latest statistics from the China Footwear Association of leather industry association, compared with 2006, the output of Chinese leather shoes exported to Europe decreased by 20% last year, or about 40 million pairs of shoes, which caused about 20000 workers to lose their jobs in China alone.

The anti-dumping duty also reduced the total export volume of China's leather shoes by about 15%.

Even the strength shoe companies of Zhejiang AOKANG, the export growth rate dropped rapidly from 30% to 10%.

To this end, a number of shoe companies put forward strategies to move westward into Russia, South to Southeast Asia, and Latin America, but subject to factors such as residents' income and consumption preferences, these areas tended to be more receptive to leather footwear, but the market space for leather shoes was relatively limited. The EU leather shoes market was becoming more and more important.

China Leather Association believes that it is a way for Chinese shoe enterprises to fundamentally solve the anti-dumping problem by promoting the core competitiveness of the industry with technological innovation, promoting the cultivation and construction of domestic brands, opening up a diversified international market, optimizing the export product mix and industrial layout, and upgrading the level of industrial clusters.

At present,

In addition, experts pointed out that in order to avoid the passive situation brought about by anti-dumping, in addition to adjusting the product structure and industrial layout, we should also increase the cultivation of private brand.

Official help

But a consortium made up of 27 developed countries has a huge disparity in strength with a shoe enterprise.

Let the enterprises see the hope is that the "official power" that the State Commerce Department has been firmly supporting is becoming increasingly prominent.

Now the Ministry of Commerce has launched the WTO (WTO) procedure and submitted the case to WTO.

Recently, the WTO dispute settlement body (DSB) formally set up an expert group to examine the relevant provisions of the EU anti-dumping basic law and the EU anti-dumping measures against Chinese leather shoes according to the WTO rules.

Zhang Ning, a professor at the law department of National School of Administration, said that the collective appeal of Chinese shoe enterprises to the European Court of justice and China's appeal to the WTO dispute settlement mechanism were to protect trade rights from two channels, namely, the private sector and the official sector.

To the European Union High Court and the establishment of dispute settlement expert group, it indicates that the two channels have entered the final stage.

In her view, although the case is still in progress, China has a great chance of winning in the end, especially in the dispute settlement mechanism.

According to Zhang Ning, the expert group in the dispute case is generally composed of 3 experts. In principle, the final report should be submitted for the dispute settlement agency's decision in 6 months (the maximum of no more than 9 months).

According to the introduction, the dispute settlement mechanism has formed WT0's unique "two trial final judgment system", which has strong judicial system nature and enhanced the authority of the dispute settlement mechanism.

At the same time, the rules and nature of the existing dispute settlement mechanism also determine the "high rate of plaintiff".

In particular, some of the protection provisions for developing countries make the plaintiff winning rate in developing countries even higher.

Data show that since 1995, the average plaintiff winning rate of all WTO member countries under the dispute settlement mechanism is about 86%, and the overall success rate of developing countries as plaintiffs is as high as 93%.

As previously reported by the newspaper, in fact, even within the EU, many people of insight criticize the EU's obvious trade protectionism, and British business secretary Mandelson said at the beginning of the year that extending anti-dumping duties on footwear products in China and Vietnam could damage the long-term business relationship between Europe and the two countries.

"One consequence of the economic crisis is the decline in the enthusiasm of EU countries for free trade.

Among EU Member States, a more introverted attitude is growing. "