The EU Anti-Dumping Case against Chinese and Vietnamese Shoes

Abstract

The debates on the EU anti-dumping cases against the imports of Chinese and Vietnamese footwear took off in 2005 in the aftermath of the lifting of quotas on Chinese footwear imports at the beginning of that year. Before 2005, the footwear sector in the EU had for decades been dominated by an extensive quota system on Chinese imports, comparable to the quotas in the textile and clothing sector discussed in Chapter 2.1 When at the beginning of 2005 this decades-long quota regime came to an end, the EU witnessed a dramatic increase of footwear imports from China. This came as no surprise, since with the quotas in place China had already become the most important EU supplier of footwear products. So when the quotas were removed, China’s already strong market position was strengthened even further and, as a result of this sharp surge of Chinese footwear imports, companies competing with Chinese imports on the EU market encountered many problems. It did not take long for these import-competitors to request the Directorate for Trade Defense of the European Commission to impose anti-dumping measures on Chinese shoes. At the same time a similar request was filed against shoe imports from Vietnam, the second most important EU footwear supplier.