China antidumping campaign a highlight for outgoing Abicalçados president
31/05/2019
Mr Klein has been a member of the management team at Abicalçados for almost 30 years, the last six as executive president, and has represented the Brazilian industry at conferences in exhibitions in many parts of the world. The role will now pass to Haroldo Ferreira, who is head of the footwear industry trade union in the Brazilian state of Bahia.
Reflecting on his time in the job and in the industry, Heitor Klein said recently that he was proud of Abicalçados initiatives such as Brazilian Footwear, Future Footwear and Projeto SOLA, which have sought to improve the country’s shoe manufacturing sector’s performance in exports, design and logistics respectively.
He also mentioned a campaign to have anti-dumping measures applied to shoes imported into Brazil from China as a success. “At that time, in 2010,” he said, “Brazil was being inundated with shoes from China with which our manufacturers could not compete. Chinese products were coming in at highly subsidised prices that were below manufacturing costs.”
Mr Klein went on to explain that in 2009, 70% of shoes imported into Brazil were from China and the Brazilian market was worth US$200 million per year to Chinese shoe companies. Abicalçados successfully campaigned to lower the limit at which extra tariffs kick in from US$13.85 per pair to US$10.22. As a result, in 2010, Brazil imported only US$50 million worth of footwear from China. “It a lengthy and costly process for Abicalçados,” Heitor Klein said on announcing his departure, “but it saved thousands of jobs in the Brazilian shoe sector.”
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