During the last edition of the Leather and Footwear Fair (Leon) the Mexican Finance Secretary Luis Videgaray said all footwear imports will continue to be charged with a tariff between 25% and 30% of the declared customs value.

In recent years Mexico has driven a process to open its markets to imports, but now authorities are voicing what they call as “unjustifiably low prices”, which according to them is leading to "unfair competition" in the Mexican market.

In a recent interview to World Footwear, Ysmael López García, President of the CICEG commented on this subject: “We must stop those who practice “dumping”, evade taxes through the introduction of shoes to Mexico with prices lower than production costs, and that damage the potential growth of our factories”.

Among other measures, footwear will only be allowed to be imported through nine customs offices - Lazaro Cardenas, Manzanillo, Mexico, Guadalajara, Veracruz, Tijuana, the Mexico City International Airport, Ciudad Hidalgo and Nuevo Laredo - as opposed to 33 prior to the changes. These measures will take effect in September and October.

Mexico is an important player in the footwear industry. According to the latest edition of the World Footwear Yearbook, over the last year Mexican exports grew by 14% and totaled 592.6 million US dollars. The country exported roughly 26 million pairs of shoes and the main destination markets include the United States, Panama and Japan. On the imports side, a 6% increase characterized sales of footwear from other countries, with China as the main supplier of footwear.