MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Mercosur footwear manufacturers want to stop the 'flood' of Asian shoe imports

“There's no way the import figures are compatible with an annual consumption of one pair of shoes in Paraguay, given the levels of poverty”, said Ramirez (Pic ABC)

Paraguay with a population of six million imports annually 25 million pairs of shoes, something considered 'incredible' and totally out of proportion with the economic situation and poverty levels of the country, claimed Mercosur members' footwear chambers and related industries.

 “We're assessing the impact, highly negative, of this situation for the shoe industry in Paraguay and Mercosur members, given particularly the disproportionate percentage of footwear imports from Asia”, said Vicente Ramirez, from Paraguay's Chamber of Footwear industry, which hosted the meeting in Asunción.

He added “there's no way the import figures are compatible with an annual consumption of one pair of shoes in Paraguay, given the levels of poverty”, so the different chambers from Mercosur are considering some of the measures implemented by other countries faced with the flood of shoes from Asia, but also working of the “tariff reference price”.

“Shoes are coming into Paraguay with a reference price of one dollar, and last year the average reference price for a pair of shoes was three US dollars; this is obviously disloyal competition. Import licenses are accessible but more significant reference prices are ridiculously low”, underlined Ramirez.

“We are going to demand that import licenses should not be automatic, as currently, and also higher tariff reference prices”.

The different Mercosur shoe manufacturers chambers also considered proposing a system of comparable values, so as to assess import prices and authorities can then establish “precautionary” prices that discourage the massive influx of footwear at ridiculous low prices.

It was decided that in the next three weeks the different chambers exchange comments of the drafted document and that the Brazilian association of footwear manufacturers presents a proposal with the criteria for the different values' categories. The initiative was supported by representatives from Paraguay, Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay.