Photo taken of workers at Thuong Dinh Footwear Company. Viet Nam exported $15 billion worth of leather and footwear products in 2015. — VNA/VNS Photo Ngoc Ha

HA NOI (Biz Hub) — Viet Nam's leather and footwear industry expects to gain a total export value of US$17 billion this year partly due to the many advantages from business conditions.

Nguyen Duc Thuan, Viet Nam Leather and Footwear Association (Lefaso) chairman, said chances on promoting exports and expanding export markets would remain this year due to advantages from free trade agreements (FTAs) with the European Union (EU), South Korea and especially Trans Pacific Partnerships (TPP) agreement.

The zero tax rate under the Viet Nam-EU FTA and TPP effective in 2018 would, in the future, promote Viet Nam's exports in leather, footwear, bags, and umbrellas, in addition to suitcases, he said.

In addition, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) recently declared partially invalid an anti-dumping regulation on certain leather footwear imports to the EU from China and Viet Nam.

It said that the Council of the EU and EU Commission did not comply with certain procedural rules when the regulation was adopted.

On October 5, 2006, the Council of the EU adopted a regulation imposing an anti-dumping duty on certain leather footwear imported from China and Viet Nam to the EU with a rate at 16.5 per cent for footwear manufactured by companies established in China (with the exception of the company Golden Step, whose anti-dumping duty was set at 9.7 per cent), and at 10 per cent for footwear manufactured by companies established in Viet Nam.

The positive change of the anti-dumping tariff for Vietnamese footwear would support local footwear in reducing difficulties of production and business at present, he said.

Last year, Viet Nam gained high growth rate in export value from the leather and footwear industry at $15 billion, an increase of 16 per cent year-on-year, according to the association, including $12 billion from footwear.

Ha Duy Hung, chairman of the Dong Hung Industry Joint Stock Company, said the local leather and footwear industry has in the past developed key export markets in Europe, United States and Japan, and they expected higher exports to those markets in the future as interests increase after the FTAs, the Dau tu online reported.

Now, Viet Nam is one of four largest footwear producers in volume on the world market, after China, India and Brazil, and is also the third largest footwear exporters in value on the global market, after China and Italy. Domestic footwear products have been shipped to 50 countries and territories. — VNS