Argentina’s New Hot Export? Polo Boots for Chinese Women
A long-simmering trade dispute between China and Argentina may be finally settling down thanks in part to some highly unlikely common ground: the sport of polo.
For most of last year, South America’s second-largest economy and Asia’s largest economy have not been playing nicely. Argentina was raising restrictions on a range of Chinese manufactures. China, in retaliation, slammed the door on Argentinian soyoil, of which the South American country is the world’s largest exporter and, until the spat, China’s largest supplier. Argentina used accounted for 77% of the Chinese soyoil market in 2009. Last year, its share plummeted to 12%.
Lately, the situation has begun to improve, with a deal to resume soyoil shipments announced last week. The arguably more surprising development, however, has to do with another Argentine product.
In Beijing for a high-level trade mission this week, the secretary of Argentina’s Footwear Industry Chamber Horacio Moschetto told Dow Jones Newswires that Argentine shoe makers had managed to tie up orders from China. And while he wouldn’t say precisely how many shoes were involved, he did let on that a big part of the deal involved polo boots.
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