Dec. 23 (Bloomberg) -- China is “strongly” dissatisfied with the European Union’s decision to extend tariffs on imports of Chinese shoes for 15 months, the Ministry of Commerce said.

The Chinese government is against any extension of anti- dumping measures in this case and will file an appeal to the World Trade Organization against the EU decision, ministry spokesman Yao Jian said in a statement posted to its Web site late yesterday.

The extension of the EU tariffs comes a day after the WTO rejected China’s appeal against a ruling that its curbs on books, films and music from the U.S. were illegal and the trade body also agreed to investigate Chinese limits on the export of raw materials including coke and magnesium. China’s Premier Wen Jiabao said Nov. 30 at a forum with European leaders that the world’s fastest-growing economy faces rising protectionism.

The Chinese government will take relevant measures to protect the legal rights of its companies, Yao said in the statement posted in response to the EU’s extension of tariffs on Chinese and Vietnamese-made shoes.

China said today it will implement temporary anti-dumping measures on carbon steel fasteners imported from the EU beginning on Dec. 28, according to a separate statement on the commerce ministry’s Web site.

Misplaced Measures

The EU’s anti-dumping measures against Chinese shoes are misplaced because European companies produce more expensive products and don’t directly compete with Chinese goods, Yao said in yesterday’s statement.

Chinese exports fell 1.2 percent from a year earlier in November, the smallest of 12 consecutive monthly declines that began in November 2008. The EU is China’s biggest trading partner, with the Asian nation ranking as the second-biggest trading partner for the block of 27 nations.

The EU first decided in 2006 to impose the tariffs on Chinese and Vietnamese-made shoes for two years. China and Vietnam’s combined share of the EU shoe market fell to 28.7 percent in the 12 months through June 2008 from 35.5 percent in 2005, according to the bloc. Over the period, China’s share fell to 18.5 percent from 22.9 percent, the EU said.

The extension of the duties as high as 16.5 percent on leather shoes is a compromise because a U.K.-led group of northern European nations opposed re-imposing the levies for the usual five-year period.

The EU goal is to curb competition for 8,000 European leather-footwear manufacturers, mainly small businesses in southern Europe. Four-fifths of the EU’s leather shoes come from Italy, Portugal and Spain, where producers are in the process of becoming more competitive, according to the bloc.