The Market Economy Status Of China'S Footwear Industry Is Still Not Optimistic.

Suffering from EU

Better priced Chinese shoes have long been the "eyesore" of some EU countries, especially Italy and Spain.

In July 2005, the EU began anti-dumping investigations on Chinese leather shoes. In October 5, 2006, it decided to impose a 16.5% anti-dumping duty on Chinese leather shoes for a period of 2 years.

At that time, there were as many as more than 1000 Chinese enterprises affected by anti-dumping.

In October 2008, the EU launched a final review on the occasion of the expiration of anti-dumping measures, and decided to extend anti-dumping measures for 15 months in December 22, 2009.

Chinese enterprises have repeatedly negotiated with the European Union and, in the absence of fruit, brought the EU to the WTO in February 2010.

The WTO set up an expert group in May to launch an investigation.

Shen Danyang, spokesman of the Ministry of Commerce, said that China welcomes the panel's decision.

China urges the European side to respect the WTO ruling and cancel the legislation inconsistent with WTO rules as soon as possible.

Mei Xinyu, an Associate Research Fellow of the Ministry of Commerce, said that this marked 10 years after China joined the WTO, and began to correct WTO's unreasonable actions by other major trading partners.

Behind this victory is China's shoe enterprises over 4 years of bitter and huge losses.

Statistics from the China Leather Industry Association show that the previous anti-dumping duty resulted in a 20% reduction in the output of Chinese leather shoes exported to Europe.

The reduction of about 40 million pairs of shoes to export to the EU has caused about 20 thousand workers to lose their jobs in China.

Wu Zhenchang, chairman of the European Union's anti dumping alliance against leather products in China and chairman of Guangzhou Chuangxin shoes industry, said that after the case was closed in April this year, Nike and other customers began to increase orders for the EU market to enterprises.

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For the reasons for winning, Jiang Xianling, vice president of the school of international economics and trade, University of International Business and Economics, told our reporter that this has benefited from two aspects, the domestic and international.

From the domestic perspective, the union of shoemaking enterprises has played a role, and also shows that China's discourse power in Europe has increased.

From an international perspective, the Europeans began to realize that after the European debt crisis, they used to use price controls to squeeze out the development models of other countries.

Through these two years, especially since the financial crisis of 2008, they saw that China has undertaken the responsibility of a great power, and saw the success of China's market economic reform. At the same time, we also saw the importance of China helping them tide over the economic crisis, so they began to consider Chinese people's feelings.

Wang Weihan, Executive Secretary General of the energy economics research center of University of International Business and Economics, pointed out in an interview with our reporter that the expert group ruled that China's victory was based on the ninth (5) rule of the basic anti-dumping regulations applicable to the European Union, which violated the basic rules of the WTO that the anti-dumping investigation should separately calculate the tax rate for each exporter.

In this way, the practice of "single rate treatment" for exporters of "non market economy" has at least turned out to be a way of retaliatory punishment for specific countries.

Because of China's "non market economy status", the EU's action against China has not been the first time, causing Chinese enterprises to suffer unfair treatment for a long time.

The external environment is still not optimistic.

Insiders pointed out that we can not be blindly optimistic about the temporary victory. At present, China has not yet won the EU's "market economy status", and the future "made in China" external trade environment is still full of danger.

Wang Zhentao, vice chairman of the China Leather Association and chairman of AOKANG footwear industry, told the footwear industry that the cancellation of the anti-dumping duty is a "burden reduction" for Chinese export enterprises. However, it should not be blindly optimistic and focus on the future of China's footwear industry.

We must be self reliant, improve product development and brand value added, and create multiple markets.

How to prevent possible anti-dumping sanctions in the future? Wang Weihan believes that the demand of China's shoe enterprises is supported by WTO institutions, and it also suggests that enterprises should actively utilize and be good at using WTO rules to safeguard their legitimate rights and interests.

The relevant departments of the Chinese government should promote China's "market economy status" as soon as possible, so as to reduce the plight of Chinese enterprises in overseas markets.

Jiang Xianling suggested that, on the macro level, the state should further intensify the reform of the market economy and deepen the reform of the economic system; enterprises should shake off the price war, and increase the added value of the products, improve the technological content and take the branding strategy.

Microcosmic aspect, enterprises should strengthen alliance and Industry Association should unite.