No going back for Mexico over Chinese imports
01/09/2011
At the moment, imported Chinese shoes carry duties of 70%; this will drop to 0% on December 11.
“It’s not in our interests as a nation to go back on what we have promised,” Mr Ferrari said at a meeting with senators on August 31. “The timescales are decided and we are sticking to them.”
He pointed out that a policy of open trade in recent years had seen the value of Mexico’s exports across all sectors increase from $52 billion in 1993 to nearly $300 billion in 2010, and said that the government would act quickly if there were evidence of uncompetitive practice on the part of Chinese exporters.
On the subject of footwear, junior minister Lorenza Martínez Trigueros insisted that imports of leather footwear, which she said constitutes 78% of Mexico’s shoe output, would still carry duties in 2012, an average of 27.5% depending on the exporting country. She pointed out that this was higher than many manufacturing nations.
Footwear industry observers immediately pointed out that, because these duties will not apply to imports from China, they ought to be part of completely separate discussion.
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