THESE SHOES were meant for walking - and the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) are not holding them up if they've been imported.
The new regulations governing the import of footwear and footwear components are now firmly in place, and importers are having no problems in getting their permits in good time, says C L March, assistant director at Import Control, DTI.
The regulations were gazetted on June 20 but we had already notified the market in general in May of the contents and called on them to get their permit applications into us, he says So many waited until after the gazette came out, however, that we had a backlog at the time. But it is all sorted out now. By Monday of this week we were processing the applications that we had received late Friday. DTI have made it clear, however, that all importers of footwear are required now to register with the division of import and export control. Permits are freely issued for footwear from World Trade Organisation (WTO) countries, but strict quotas apply to those from non-WTO signatories.
