HANOI, May 24 (AFP) - The European Union is to clamp down on Vietnamese exports to combat flagrant abuses of certificates of origin by third countries, an EU delegation representative said on Monday. Several countries, particularly China, have taken advantage of Vietnam's quota-free access to sell products to the EU with false Made-in-Vietnam labelling and certification. The official, who requested anonymity, said the EU will soon require its members to issue import licences for all shoes of Vietnamese origin. These must tally with export licences issued by Vietnam. According to a recent EU survey, the most flagrant abuser was China, which bypassed EU quotas on its products by providing false documentation showing they were made in Vietnam. "This is just more controls, a form of double-checking and proper documentation," the official said. The agreement with Vietnam, which the EU expects to conclude within a few weeks, requires Vietnam to issue corresponding export documentation verifying origin. The EU was alerted to the abuses by the huge discrepency between its figures of shoe imports from Vietnam, which were two thirds greater than Vietnam's recorded exports. According to Vietnamese ministry of trade statistics Vietnam exported 622 million dollars worth of shoes in 1998 while the EU recorded imports worth more than one billion dollars. The official said Vietnam was not directly implicated in the scam, as most shoes are made by subcontracters who do not know where their products are ultimately destined. "They don't even know who they are selling to," he said. The move is also not expected to affect legitimate exports of Vietnamese shoes to the EU, which accounted for about two-thirds of Vietnam's shoe sales last year. Shoes are Vietnam's second largest export earner, accounting for 13 percent of the 4.006 billion dollars in total exports during the year to date.  