Chinese shoemakers are continuing to file objections to the European Union sanctions on China-made footwear.

A group of 14 shoe producing enterprises, including Dongyi, Kangnai and Hongqingting, in Wenzhou City, East China's Zhejiang Province, have recently made a joint declaration through the city's shoe industry association to oppose the EU sanctions.

In the declaration, the enterprises proposed that all Chinese shoemakers concerned should further enhance cooperation with their EU trade partners in filing objections.

They said according to WTO's anti-dumping protocol, any anti-dumping prosecution should has 15 injury indicators, however, the EU sanctions are only based on six indicators, with insufficient evidences.

Meanwhile, the enterprises added, the duties are only at the service for vested interests and will encroach interests of importers, retailers, raw materials and equipment suppliers and consumers in the EU.

More than 150 Chinese shoemakers have formed an alliance against EU's anti-dumping duties and jointly raised 3 million yuan (375,000 U.S.dollars) for the "no-injury defence".

The European Commission has decided to impose duties of 19.4 percent on shoes from China and 16.8 percent from Vietnam.

The anti-dumping duties are to be phased in for six months starting from April 7.

The sanctions have already begun to affect China's shoe making industry.

As an important shoe manufacturing base on the Chinese mainland, Wenzhou is home to nearly 4,000 shoemakers, employing more than 400,000 workers and producing 600 million pairs of shoes annually. Last year, Wenzhou exported 438 million pairs of shoes at a combined value of 1.58 billion U.S. dollars. One third of the exports were sold to the EU, accounting for more than one fourth of China's total shoe exports to EU.

But customs statistics show that in February, Zhejiang exported 17.86 million pairs of shoes to the EU for 50 million U.S. dollars, down 15.4 percent and 18.5 percent, respectively, from the year-earlier level, or down 49.8 percent and 55.3 percent from the month-earlier level.

Guangzhou Yunfang Shoe Trade Co., Ltd. based in Guangzhou, capital city of South China's Guangdong Province, sold 500,000 pairs of shoes to the EU last year, but the sanctions that kicked off on Friday has helped halved one of its orders from the EU, with export prices plummeting.

Hong Guangsheng, a manager with Yunfang, said, "Originally, the Italian importer planned to buy 40,000 pairs of shoes from my company. Now they've slashed the order by half, and cut the price per pair from 25 yuan to 21 yuan."

"Yunfang is a trade company. If the EU partners want us to bear most of the sanctions cost, we will have to transfer part of it to shoemakers" Hong complained.

Nonetheless, numerous small and medium-sized shoemakers will probably be unable to bear sharp ups and downs on international markets, due largely to continuous cost rises for labor force and raw materials.

Huizhou City in South China's Guangdong Province annually produces more than 600 million pairs of shoes and exports 10 billion yuan (1.2 billion U.S.dollars) worth of footwear. But of the 3,000-plus local shoemakers, only 400-odd each employs at least 1,000 workers.

Huang Rongmao, deputy secretary-general of Huizhou shoe industry council, said, "After they quit farming, local peasants mainly live on shoe making and production of related materials. In the area, there are 15,000 people devoted to shoe making and related business.

The EU anti-dumping measures will directly force the smaller enterprises to go bust and hence threaten the living of tens of thousands people."

Under the pressure from the EU sanctions, shoemakers in Guangdong, Zhejiang and Fujian have begun to resort to other markets.

Officials from Vietnam and Indonesia have invited Chinese shoemakers to explore the markets in the ASEAN countries.

Earlier this week, commercial counselors from Indonesia, Vietnam, Laos made an inspection at the Kangnai Group, a prestigious shoemaker in Wenzhou.

Russia will also be a good target market for Chinese shoemaker.

The Dongyi company, also from Wenzhou, has established presence in the Russian market and had its products well received by consumers there.

Luo Zhigang, an official from the Hongqingting Group based in Wenzhou, said, "Hongqingting sells 90 percent of its products to the Chinese market. We won't never give up the domestic market."

The European shoemakers used to win markets with advantage in labor cost, the same as we do. We should not follow their old path."

Source: Xinhua