§ Sir G. de Freitasasked the Secretary of State for Trade what action has been taken during the past 12 months to prevent the dumping of footwear from Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America, respectively.
§ Mr. Meacher,pursuant to his reply [Official Report, 11th October 1976; Vol. 917, c. 33], gave the following information:
During the past 12 months a countervailing duty of 8 per cent. was imposed from 29th April 1976 on subsidised men's fashion leather footwear from Brazil and an application for the imposition of antidumping duties on men's leather sandals from Poland and Czechoslovakia was accepted for investigation on 27th September 1976. Several other complaints have been made by the United Kingdom industry about allegedly dumped and subsidised footwear imports from various sources. We are in touch with the industry about these but in most cases it has not so far been possible to produce sufficient evidence to justify formal action under the Customs Duties (Dumping and Subsidies) Act 1969.
In addition to anti-dumping investigations, voluntary restraint levels have been agreed for 1976 in respect of leather footwear, excluding sandals, from Eastern Europe. Czechoslovakia, Romania and Poland, the principal East European suppliers of low cost footwear, have undertaken to continue during 1976 their 1975 restraint on exports of men's leather footwear to a level 5–10 per cent. below their 1974 exports.