"We need statistics from at least six months to tell whether there is harm to the market or not," he said.
The statistics on which the EU probe was based were not accurate, argued Luan Chunsheng, vice-president of the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Light Industrial Products and Arts-Crafts.
"The figures from 2005 covered the 25 EU countries while part were from 2004 and were based on an estimation for 10 new members," he said.
He added that it was not right for the EU to take the quantity of import permits as the realized shipments.
Fearing a series of anti-dumping charges on more categories of footwear, the Chinese Government and industrial associations have called on enterprises involved to respond.
But this might bring about trade frictions with additional trading partners in case those enterprises forced out of the EU swarm to other markets.
As a matter of fact, more than 10 major labour safety shoe manufacturers in China reached an agreement late last month to respond to the dumping charges together.
The EU, which is the second largest market for Chinese shoes, has launched a dumping investigation against two categories of labour safety shoes originating from China at the end of last month.
It claimed that after the quota system on the shoe trade was eliminated on January 1 this year, its imports of six categories of footwear from China enjoyed a year-on-year rise of681 percent in the first four months of this year.
Ministry of Commerce of the People's Republic of China
marketing@alchempro.com
