Shoe Industry Game: EU Anti-Dumping "Bite" Chinese Shoes

December 13th, according to the China Leather Association shoemaking office, EU system

China's acting attorney, Pu Ling Chen, who has been acting as an agent for anti-dumping cases involving leather shoes in China, said that the old shoe making countries such as Italy and Spain continue to submit their appeals for re examination. Therefore, before the end of this month, the EU footwear Federation is likely to submit a retrial complaint before the end of this month.

Russian seizure

From August 2001 to January 2002, there was a seizure in Russia, and Wenzhou shoes were involved.

The seizure of goods lasted the longest. The loss of Zhejiang merchants was about 300 million yuan, and the loss of individual enterprises was more than ten million yuan.

Rome shoe burning incident

In the winter of 2003, more than 20 footwear products of Wenzhou shoe companies were burned in Rome, Italy.

The loss is unknown.

Nigeria censoring

In January 8, 2004, the Nigeria government issued a list of prohibited imports and Wenzhou shoes ranked among them.

Wenzhou shoes Russia checked

In February 12, 2004, the Russian Ministry of internal affairs dispatched a large number of police officers to check the cargo of Chinese merchants in the "Amy pull" big market, including Chinese traders in Wenzhou, which lost about $30 million.

Spain shoe burning incident

In September 17, 2004, in China shoe Town, Elche, Spain, a truck carrying Wenzhou shoes and a Wenzhou shoe store were burned by local lawless men, worth about 8 million yuan.

Russian shoe of Wenzhou shoes

On the evening of March 12, 2005, Russian police had forcibly seized more than 100 containers, worth nearly 100 million Wenzhou shoes, and all goods have not been returned.

In July 26th, the Russian side seized a large number of Wenzhou shoes again.

On the 27 day, Chinese businessmen spent nearly one million yuan on the "fine" to redeem all shoes, but the shoe industry association of Wenzhou said it could not confirm it.

There is no official data to verify the exact number of manufacturers and quantities of shoes seized in Wenzhou.

However, from the agencies' attorneys' offices of various enterprises, we know that there are thirty or forty enterprises that have been seized by shoe companies.

Russian tax police buckle Wenzhou shoes again

On the evening of July 26, 2005, a large number of Russian tax police drove to the "39 warehouse" in the center of Moscow, and again seized the value of nearly eighty million yuan of Chinese shoes with no formal customs declaration documents.

Poison shoe incident

In December 2005, the Italy Footwear Manufacturers Association (ANCI) suddenly made an attack on Chinese shoes, accusing China of importing footwear products containing over standard nickel, azo dyes and other chemicals that might irritate the skin, of which nickel content exceeded 4 times the EU standard.

Subsequently, the Ministry of health of Italy began to test the Chinese footwear products imported from the border randomly to confirm whether there are toxic substances harmful to human health in China's footwear products.

At the beginning of the 2006 year, some Chinese footwear products were seized at the port because of excessive ingredients.

Spanish Chinese shoe store was checked {page_break}

In November 8, 2010, local police cracked down on the "imitation and counterfeit" actions in the ELCHE industrial area of Spain.

During the police raid on the Chinese warehouse area on the same day, three Chinese warehouses under investigation were all sealed up on the charge of "counterfeiting famous brand shoes".

Among them, 25 overseas Chinese were arrested, and more than 10 thousand pairs of imitation shoes were seized.

Why are they repeatedly subjected to anti-dumping?

European countries generally believe that China's manufacturing industry is a competitor and has a great impact on its manufacturing industry. Urgent measures must be taken to avoid greater losses. The main reasons are as follows:

China has now become the world's largest exporter of footwear products, thus grabbing the market share that should belong to Europe, resulting in a large decline in European exports.

But China has imposed high tariffs on footwear imports, making it difficult for European shoes to enter the Chinese market.

The European representative believed that the shoe market in China was closed and that the shoe trade between China and Europe is not equal trade.

Low dumping of Chinese footwear products has resulted in an increase in the unemployment rate of the EU footwear industry.

The European representative believes that China's footwear products are dumping at the price equivalent to raw materials, and more and more serious. China's export of low priced shoes to the world has led to the first annual production of shoes in Europe less than 80 million pairs, down 11% compared with the same period last year, and thousands of shoe companies have closed down and lost tens of thousands of jobs.

Some even pointed out that China has been trapped in our necks and can not survive at all.

Even the powerful shoe making industry, Italy, has been hit, resulting in four crises in southern Italy and tens of thousands of jobs lost.

Export tax rebates for footwear products are disguised subsidies.

Some delegates pointed out that China still has export tax rebates. They think that this is a subsidy, though it has dropped from 15% to 13%, but it has caused unfair competition, and it is considered that such subsidies should not exist.

The issue of RMB exchange rate.

The representatives from Europe and Brazil believe that the profit of shoemaking industry is very low. As China's RMB has maintained a certain level for a long time, it is not suited to the speed of China's economic development and the growth of GDP, resulting in a strong competitive advantage of Chinese products, leading to Europe and other countries unable to compete with China.

Calmly treat Antidumping

There are many people who are "scared" about the anti-dumping measures and are overly frightened.

Once an industry or enterprise is confronted with anti-dumping, it will lose relevant market from then on.

Researchers believe that one of the most important reasons why China has become the most prosecuted anti-dumping case is the deepening of China's integration into the world trade system.

The number of anti-dumping investigations increased to second, indicating that China is gradually learning to use anti-dumping weapons to safeguard their interests.

As a professional topic under the WTO framework, anti-dumping has the characteristics of strong technology, complex procedures and wide coverage. At present, there are still some misunderstandings in the understanding of anti-dumping in China. These misunderstandings have had a negative impact on anti-dumping measures at the specific level.

As a matter of fact, according to information, after the implementation of anti-dumping measures by foreign countries, the export of 1/2 related products has not been significantly reduced, but the specific export characteristics of the products have undergone more complicated changes due to the different industries.

Therefore, a rational and objective view of anti-dumping is crucial to improving efficiency and striving for China's initiative in international trade.

Actively respond to anti-dumping

The footwear industry is a labor-intensive industry. Now the trend of global industrial division is bound to shift the shoemaking industry to many countries and regions where labour force is much cheaper.

One of the aims of the EU anti-dumping investigation is to protect its own industries, and the other aim is to raise prices and raise taxes, so as to shift the profits of Chinese shoe enterprises to their pockets in the export trade to the EU.

For a considerable period of time, the difficulties faced by "Chinese shoes" export can not be ignored. If Chinese enterprises are still pursuing a low price "killer" to seize foreign markets, China's footwear industry will go on thin ice in the international market.

How to find a powerful way to get rid of this situation as soon as possible and change passivity into initiative has become an urgent problem for Chinese shoe enterprises.

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First of all, Chinese shoe enterprises should actively respond to complaints and defences.

Chinese shoe companies are often at a loss when dealing with anti-dumping investigations.

First of all, we do not know clearly about the anti-dumping investigation, and do not respond positively. Secondly, the Chinese footwear industry has not formed a strong body, and we have "done everything for ourselves" and weakened the overall strength. The anti-dumping investigation procedure is not a general judicial procedure, but an administrative procedure.

The purpose of anti-dumping is not to investigate the responsibility of the parties concerned, but to restrict their future dumping behavior and protect the future market.

If the Chinese shoe enterprises only blindly acquiescence and tolerate, do not sue or respond negatively, they may face a higher amount of anti-dumping duty in the future.

Chinese shoe enterprises should take a long-term view and not only focus on the interests of enterprises and their immediate interests, but also focus on the market share. It is not the market that has no interest. This is not achieved by a single enterprise. Although some well-known domestic shoe enterprises are beginning to try to take up legal weapons to safeguard their rights and interests, a typical example is: in October 23, 2006, Wenzhou AOKANG group, China's largest private shoe making enterprise, announced that it had filed a lawsuit with the European Court of justice, accusing the European Union of levying 16.5% of the anti-dumping duties of the Chinese footwear enterprises not in conformity with the relevant laws of the European Union. However, most of the small and medium-sized shoe enterprises still have a wait-and-see attitude and have not really United.

China has the largest footwear production market, and Chinese shoe companies share a common goal of survival. If we can integrate the collective strength and work together to make the EU hear the voice of Chinese shoe companies, we will have a positive boycott of the EU anti-dumping investigation.

It is in the process of accepting challenges that Chinese shoe enterprises can really grow and pform, thus promoting the overall competitiveness of the industry.

Second, adjust the industrial structure and improve the technological content of products.

China's footwear industry, with its abundant domestic resources and low labor costs, has adopted a low-cost competition strategy to open up the export market to the EU.

Products are mostly concentrated in the low-end market, with low technical content, low added value, and lack of brand awareness, especially for large quantity of OEM shoes.

At the same time, Chinese shoes can not match the products of the European Union in design.

At present, the frequent anti-dumping actions against Chinese shoes are aimed at low grade products with low technical content and low added value.

The profit margins of these products themselves are very small. After levying anti-dumping duties, they can only compress the profits of enterprises more forcefully and make the future export of enterprises difficult.

China's footwear enterprises should take this opportunity to upgrade the industry, increase investment in design and research, introduce advanced international concepts and methods in product performance, style and comfort, improve the internal performance of products, increase the intensity of independent innovation, grasp the core technology, create world-class brands, actively strive for the international high-end market share, pform from a trading power to a trade power, and change the mode of "multi volume, low price, high quality and high price".

Finally, we should expand the mode of pnational operation.

Just like many traditional industries in the European Union, the footwear industry is also losing its comparative advantage in terms of production resources and costs, showing a declining trend. Although the industry occupies a high end and the competition is actually weak, the EU shoe companies are also actively looking for opportunities for China to trade.

At the same time, due to the constant upgrading of industries and brand building, its shoe making technology and footwear brand are still synonymous with the most high-end shoes in the world. This provides an excellent opportunity for China's footwear industry to achieve internationalization.

The Chinese shoe enterprises, through the pnational cooperation with the EU shoe enterprises, can learn from the core technology of the product development that the EU shoe companies have accumulated for a long time. On the other hand, they can make use of their sales channels to win the share of Chinese shoes in the EU market. These advantages can not be obtained through simple technology introduction or attracting foreign capital.

For example, in 2008, AOKANG group of China acquired the global brand management and production rights of Italy wanwade. Wanwade will help AOKANG set up a product research and Development Center at its Italy headquarters, and provide venues, equipment and production resources. AOKANG seeks to achieve the internationalization of China's local brands, the most needed core technology in the world.

Meanwhile, Wanli Wei, a shopping mall with shopping malls, will become a complement to AOKANG group's sales channel resources, changing its previous single store sales mode and widening its sales network.

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It is also understood that in response to the European Union's shoe enterprises' re filing of sunset review, AOKANG is actively preparing for the EU's anti-dumping debate.

At present, the WTO expert group has just concluded the first round of the case. The second round of the meeting will be held around January 20th next year, and the outcome of the ruling will be seen in March next year.

Experts remind us that we should seize the opportunity of Brazil's anti-dumping review on shoes in March 2011 and mobilize the production enterprises to participate in the review. We should unite with the brand players to form a resultant force and strive for favorable results.