The European Union said today it would not hesitate to slap import duties on Chinese footwear if it was clear that unfair trade practices were behind a triple-digit leap in shipments since the start of this year.
"The European Commission has noted the concerns of the EU footwear industry that this rise is causing considerable market disruptions to EU producers," the 25-nation bloc's executive said in a statement.
The spotlight on cheap Chinese exports of shoes and slippers comes amid mounting tension over moves by the United States and the 25-nation EU to curb a huge rises in imports of textiles and clothing from China.
A spokeswoman said EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson may travel to Beijing on Friday to try to clinch an agreement on restraining a surge on textile exports, which was unleashed by the abolition of a decades-old global quotas regime on January 1st.
China has until Saturday to curb the rise in exports of T-shirts and flax yarn to the EU to 7.5 per cent over the previous year or face the imposition of temporary quotas on these products within days.
Pressed by Italy, which has a tradition of shoe production, the EU Commission monitored imports of six categories of footwear after the elimination of quotas, finding a year-on-year rise of 681 percent for the first four months of this year. It said the unit price of these imports fell by 28 percent.