An official negotiation team will head for the European Union next month to defend the interests of Chinese shoe makers, according to China's Ministry of Commerce.

The team headed by Vice Minister Gao Hucheng hopes the trip to EU headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, will lead to an agreement prior to the EU announcement of its final anti-dumping rulings against China-made shoes in October.

Two draft anti-dumping charges have been discussed by the European Commission to date. The latest one allows importers to buy 140 million pairs of leather shoes each year from China and 95 million from Vietnam.

The figures are about 80 percent of the EU's current imports from the two countries. The union will apply punitive duties for shoes sold in excess of the annual quota - up to 23 per cent for leather shoes from China and 29.5 for Vietnamese shoes.

With speculations about a third draft to be discussed soon, the Ministry of Commerce said it would continue to negotiate with the EU side on this issue.

The representative team did not disclose their tactics or proposals, merely predicting that punitive duties in the third draft of the law would be less than 16.5 percent.

Source: Xinhua