BEIJING - It will become hard for China's leather industry and shoe trade to maintain a high-speed growth around 20% as it did over the past few years, owing to intensified international trade friction and rising costs, warned the China Association of Leather Trade.
And the European Union will levy a 4% temporary anti-dumping tax on China's leather shoes from April of this year, and raise the tariff gradually to 19.4% in the following five months.
The European Union is the second-largest export market for China's leather shoes, accounting for 14.4% of total exports and 16.3% of the total export value. What's more, the EU's anti-dumping measure may prompt Brazil and South Africa to implement similar tariffs. However, even with these negative
influences, China's leather industry still posted rapid growth in 2005, according to the recent conference of economic operation of leather industry.
China had more than 5,800 leather enterprises each with a sale value of five million yuan (US$622,000) in 2005. Together they realized a gross output value of 311.8 billion yuan, up 26% tear-on-year.
The export of leather products reached $32.679 billion in 2005, up 19%. This included $17.11 billion of leather shoe exports.
