Brussels, October 4 :

The European Union today adopted, by the narrowest of majorities, new anti-dumping measures to tackle imports of leather shoes from China and Vietnam, a diplomatic source said.

The vote to adopt the measures for two years resulted in a 13 to 12 majority in the 25-nation EU, the source said. The vote will allow the new anti-dumping measures to come into force from October 7, with import duties of 16.5 per cent on Chinese shoes with leather uppers, in place of the current temporary duty of 19.4 per cent.

The tariff on the same kind of shoes from Vietnam will be 10 per cent in place of the current temporary duty of 16.8 per cent. The main vote faultline runs between Europe’s economically liberal north, hostile in principle to anti-dumping measures, and the more protectionist south, sympathetic to the views of EU producers.

The Commission had proposed a five-year penalty, but the compromise on the measure’s duration, proposed by France, allowed the vote to go through. In the vote, taken during a meeting in Brussels of the Committee of the Permanent Representatives of the 25 EU nations, nine countries voted in favour of the two-year long measures and 12 maintained their opposition.

The remaining four countries abstained in Wednesday’s vote but their votes counted for

the proposal as they did not oppose it.

EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson accepted the compromise, his spkesman Peter Power said.

Non-stop flights to Tibet :

BEIJING: A charter flights with 109 tourists aboard has arrived in Tibet from Singapore, inaugurating a new trend for foreign airlines to fly non-stop to the roof of the world. The plane, chartered from Air China by a Singaporean travel agency, touched down near the Tibetan capital of Lhasa on Tuesday.

“The flight will spur a new trend for overseas tourists who want to visit Tibet,” said Bazho, director of the Tibet Tourism Bureau, who like many other Tibetans has just one name. Overseas tourists usually have to stop at Chengdu, capital of southwest China’s Sichuan province, or Beijing before they fly to Tibet.

Tibetan tourism has seen a boost in recent months, not least because of the opening of railway line linking Lhasa with Beijing and a growing number of other large Chinese cities since July this year. — AFP