Vietnam has for the first time scored a victory against a lawsuit directed towards its global exports on the evasion of anti-dumping taxes, according to the Vietnam Competition Administration (VCA) under the Ministry of Industry and Trade.

The winner this time is sports and casual shoes, with Brazil recently announcing that no Vietnamese manufacturers have been found to have evaded the anti-dumping taxes slapped on their exports to the country.

This is the official result after a nine-month administrative review, VCA said.

Brazil slapped anti-dumping tariffs on Chinese footwear products in 2009. Since then Chinese footwear export turnover to Brazil has slumped 16 percent, while shipments of similar products from Vietnam surged 30 percent.

With Vietnamese products accounting for 22 percent of the total footwear import turnover, Brazil suspected that Vietnam had been evading the anti-dumping taxes.

The South American country then put Vietnamese footwear exports under scrutiny to detect whether they were manufactured in China and sent through Vietnam, in order to be labeled as made in the latter country and therefore bypass anti-dumping tariffs.

In 2011 Vietnamese footwear exports to Brazil were worth $180 million, topping the list of export tables to the booming country.

Vietnam’s total export turnover of footwear rose 28 percent from 2011 to $6.6 billion, standing behind only textile and garments and crude oil.

Brazil is among the most willing countries to bring exporters from other countries to court on anti-dumping prices to protect its domestic production sector, according to the World Trade Organization.

In the latest case, motorbike tires imported from Vietnam have come under scrutiny for anti-dumping prices, following a lawsuit filed by the country’s Ministry of Development, Industry, and External Commerce (MDIC).

However, the victory in such a lawsuit from Brazil will help Vietnamese footwear exporters to maintain and develop their market in the country, industry insiders said.

Tuoitre