Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-10-11-Speech-3-141"
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"en.20061011.16.3-141"2
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"Mr President, just last year, a total of 1 billion 250 million pairs of shoes from China came onto the European market. That is half of all the shoes sold in the European Union during that time. Meanwhile, since 2001, production of leather footwear in Europe has fallen by almost 30%. In the European Union shoe sector almost 40 000 jobs have been lost during this period.
The situation in Poland is similar. In 2001, Poland imported only 300 000 pairs of Chinese-made shoes. Now the figure is 9 million pairs per annum. This has had a direct knock-on effect on employment in the sector. In 2003, the shoe-making industry in Poland consisted of 123 firms, while in 2005 there were only 93. At the same time, employment in the industry fell from almost 17 000 to 13 000, with production falling from 18 to 15 million pairs. What is more, it is not the consumer who has benefited from these huge imports through lower prices, as is generally thought, but the importers themselves, who often add profit margins exceeding 100% of the transaction value.
In this situation it is good that the European Commission has finally decided to impose tariffs to protect the European market, and in particular that experts from the Commission have established beyond all doubt that China is using dumping prices. Governments such as China and Vietnam are unfairly supporting their manufacturers through tax concessions, the provision of free land, and also by absolving them of the full costs of manufacture, for example by waiving environmental taxes. The only regret is that this has come so late in the day, after the European shoemaking industry has suffered so badly.
The European Commission must do everything in its power to prevent such a situation from repeating itself in any other sector of the economy. What is more, decisions on how to react to the sale of goods at dumping prices within the European customs area must be made quickly to limit the damage such imports cause to manufacturing, and therefore to employment in the European Union."@en1
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