The European Commission will investigate three Vietnamese shoe manufacturers to decide whether to extend antidumping duties on Vietnamese leather shoes.

Leather sports shoes will also be excluded from the review, EC officials decided following a meeting Thursday with executives of the Vietnam Leather and Footwear Association (LEFASO).

But the specific companies have not been named yet, LEFASO chairman Nguyen Duc Thuan told Thanh Nien Daily.

The EC’s duties of 10 percent on leather footwear, due to expire last month after being in force for two years, will stay in place pending the review.

Thuan said the two sides decided at the meeting to reduce the review period to nine months from the previously planned 12 months.

The review would focus on prices and volumes of Vietnamese leather shoes imported into Europe after the punitive duty was slapped on in 2006, Thuan said.

LEFASO said after the 10 percent anti-dumping tax was slapped on local shoe exporters in 2006, prices of exports to the bloc rose by 15-20 percent by last year while volume fell from more than 100 million pairs to 90 million.

The 27-member EC accused Vietnam as well as China of selling leather shoes at unfair prices, levying an anti-dumping tax of 16.5 percent on the latter.

Vietnamese shoemakers will also have to pay almost double the current duty of 3.6 percent on exports to Europe next year after the EC removes the Vietnamese footwear industry from a preferential tariff program in April.