Vietnam exports shoes to Brazil face barriers

This year, Vietnam’s exports of shoes to Brazil may slow down due to Brazil’s investigation of Vietnamese-made shoes, the LEFASO said.

In October last year, Brazil conducted investigations on leather shoe materials imported from China and finished shoes imported from Vietnam and Indonesia. Brazil suspected that these imported footwear products were suspected of tax evasion.

The Competition Ministry of Vietnam's Ministry of Trade and Industry said that since 2009, Brazil has imposed anti-dumping duties on shoes imported from China. Brazil is investigating whether China’s exports of products through third countries to Brazil are suspected of tax evasion.

In September last year, Brazil initiated anti-dumping investigations on yarns imported from Vietnam and Turkey. At the same time, the South Atlantic News Agency stated that this is part of Brazilian President Rousseff's efforts to limit imports, especially from China, in order to accelerate production in Brazil.

Brazil’s trade office in Argentina said that Brazil will begin to strictly regulate imports from China and other Asian countries from the second quarter of this year in order to prevent the entry of cheap products from these countries into Brazil.

These commodities from Asia, mainly from China, will reach the standards set by the Brazilian side from the second quarter of this year, otherwise they will not be allowed to import into Brazil. These measures are non-tariff barriers applied to more than 240 000 industrial products such as textiles and clothing, metal materials, auto parts and children's toys.

A senior Brazilian official said that cheap products from China flowed into Brazil. Last year, bilateral trade between Brazil and China reached 77 billion U.S. dollars and Brazil’s trade deficit reached 11.5 billion U.S. dollars, the official explained.

The trade deficit between Vietnam and Brazil reached US$13 million in January this year. Vietnam supplies daily necessities to Brazil, such as seafood, rubber products, bags and suitcases, and footwear accounts for half of Vietnam’s exports to Brazil.

In January, Vietnam’s footwear exports to Brazil accounted for more than 3% of Vietnam’s total leather and footwear exports, while textiles and clothing exports to Brazil accounted for 0.25% of Vietnam’s total textile and apparel exports. Therefore, strict import supervision in Brazil will affect the local textile and clothing sector.