Local politician speaks up for footwear
08/05/2008
Footwear manufacturers in the state of Guanajuato, Mexico, reacted angrily when the director of Mexico's National Institute for Competitiveness (IMCO), Roberto Newell, suggested they might be suffering at the hands of Chinese competitors because the Asian manufacturers were better.
Mr Newell made the remarks on a visit to León, the country's main footwear producing area. He said he was not in favour of a further extension of the tariffs Mexico is imposing on Chinese footwear imports at the moment. Instead of closing the borders, he said local manufacturers needed to improve their offering, adding that it was not always the case that overseas competitors always used trade-distorting tricks to gain access to the Mexican market. Sometimes the overseas companies did a better job, he said.
However, a member of the Guanajuato state parliament, Adriana Rodríguez, came immediately to the defence of local producers. She said that in the case of footwear, China was using trade-distorting mechanisms to place its shoes on Mexican shelves, for example by exporting to the US and transporting the footwear to Mexico from there under the auspices of the free trade agreement in place between the two North American companies.
“In the face of such unfair practices, it's only right to keep the tariffs in place,” she said.
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