Argentine government gives Brazilian shoes the boot after 4-year truce

The Argentine government again banned Brazilian shoes in the country after a four-year truce. According to ABICALÇADOS, the Brazilian association of footwear industries, which has been monitoring the issue, 328,000 pairs of shoes are currently pending import licenses to enter the neighboring country, 315,000 of which have already exceeded the maximum waiting period of 60 days established by the World Trade Organization (WTO).

According to Haroldo Ferreira, Executive President of ABICALÇADOS, the loss has already reached US$ 3 million. “In October, in the first monitoring carried out on demand by some companies that were facing the problem again, almost 850,000 pairs were waiting for clearance at the border. That was when we had a meeting with the Argentine embassy in Brazil. Since then, there has been an improvement, but we are being observant”, says the executive.

Ferreira recalls that the fact refers to the Kirchner governments when Brazilian shoes had the same difficulties to enter the neighboring country. “Argentina is going through an economic crisis and needs to preserve its foreign-exchange reserves. The natural measure of the government, which has a more protectionist orientation, is to stop imports, a barrier that in this case is placed through non-automatic licenses ”, explains the leader, stressing that the concern is that cancellations or even requests for extension may incur costs, further damaging the Brazilian industry.

Currently, Argentina is the second destination for Brazilian footwear abroad, behind only the United States. Between January and October this year, the neighboring country was the destination of 6.28 million pairs produced in the country, which generated US$ 60.17 million, a decrease of 25.2% in volume, and an increase of 33.2% in revenue in relation to the same period of 2019.

The following chart shows Argentine footwear imports from Brazil and other destinations since January 2017:

Argentine Footwear Imports (HS 64) | Jan 2017 to Oct 2020 | TEU

Source: DataLiner (To request a DataLiner demo click here)

Sharing is caring!