Vietnam is expected to reap footwear export value of 3.3 billion US dollars next year, compared with estimated 3 billion dollars this year, the Trade Information Center under the Vietnamese Trade Ministry predicted Friday.

The country is striving to penetrate deeply into Africa, Japan and the United States, after the European Union (EU) recently issued its preliminary findings on anti-dumping investigation on Vietnamese footwear, saying that local footwear producers have not met a market economy's criteria including those on price, investment and market. Accordingly, Vietnamese footwear may face an anti-dumping tariff of 130 percent.

In addition, Vietnam will intensify trade promotion activities, expand support to leather products manufacturing enterprises and exporters, and learn more about fashion trends on overseas markets to make suitable products.

Vietnam exported more than 2.6 billion dollars worth of footwear mainly to the EU, Japan and the United States last year, a-year-on-year rise of 14.8 percent, according to the General Statistics Office. The country has a total workforce of more than 500,000 in footwear industry.

Source: Xinhua