Brussels - The European Union's executive decided on Thursday to launch a formal review of current anti-dumping measures against Chinese and Vietnamese leather shoes, effectively keeping those measures in place despite opposition from EU member states.

"The European Commission today decided to launch an expiry review into the (anti-dumping) measures. The practical implication means the measures will continue for the duration of that review," Peter Power, spokesman for EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson, said.

"The review could last anything up to 12-15 months, but we will try and expedite this," he said.

In October 2006 the EU imposed anti-dumping duties on imports of leather shoes from China and Vietnam, saying that the governments of the two countries were giving domestic producers unfair support.

In September, EU member states voted by a narrow majority that those measures should be allowed to expire on October
6. The vote was advisory in nature, not legally binding.

And following calls from European industry, the commission instead decided to launch a study of what impact the ending of the measures would have first - a move which means the measures will continue until the review is over.

"A majority voted against this proposal, but it is a commission decision and our legal advice was very clear: the commission had no choice, having received a well-argued, well-founded request from industry, but to undertake this review," Power said.

"To have failed to respond would have left us open to legal challenge in the (European) court," he said.

The current measures in place impose import duties of 16.5 per cent on leather shoes from China and 10 per cent on leather shoes from Vietnam.

In 2005 the EU imported some 1.5 billion pairs of shoes from Vietnam and China, or three pairs for every EU citizen. Of those, some 277 million pairs were subject to anti-dumping duties. (dpa)