HANOI, Feb. 23 (Xinhuanet) -- "Vietnamese enterprises do not sell leather-upper shoes in the European market at dumping prices," and the European Commission (EC) should make fair decisions on the issue, Vietnamese foreign ministry spokesman said Thursday.

    "We hope that the EC will make objective and fair decisions on Vietnamese enterprises' leather-upper shoes exported to the European Union (EU) market, so as not to affect the interests of Vietnamese workers as well as EU consumers, the EU footwear retailindustry and many EU footwear enterprises having investment and trade in Vietnam," the spokesman Le Dung told reporters.

    Local leather shoes makers operate according to laws of market economy and fair competition, he said, noting that the Vietnamese government does not interfere or subsidize business of the enterprises, and that local firms have been actively cooperating with EC's investigators during their investigation.

    The EC, which started to investigate last July whether leather-upper shoes made in Vietnam and China sold at below cost in Europe,will decide by early April whether to place provisional anti-dumping tariffs on the footwear, and then by mid-October whether to impose them definitively for a five-year period, the Trade Information Center under the Vietnamese Trade Ministry said recently.

    Vietnam, who earned 300 million U.S. dollars from supplying footwear of different kinds to the world market in January, up 7.4percent against last January, is expected to reap footwear export turnover of 3.3 billion dollars this year, up from over 3 billion dollars last year. Its key footwear markets include the EU, the United States and Japan.

    Facing the coming anti-dumping duties, local footwear firms are striving to penetrate more deeply into Africa, Japan and the United States. Relevant Vietnamese agencies are intensifying tradepromotion activities, expanding support to leather products manufacturing enterprises and exporters, and further studying fashion trends in overseas markets to make suitable products, the center said. Enditem